Time for the North Island - Everybody who is anybody in sailing in New Zealand said "you have to go up the west coast not the east coast, the wind is much better...." so that's what we did. . Because of the lack of suitable ports on the way north it was necessary to go direct from the north of the South Island to the north of the North Island and then come back down the east coast. From the Marlborough Sounds to Spirits Bay on the northern tip of the North Island is around 450 miles.
After careful analysis of the weather we determined that a more or less perfect weather window would open for our passage up the west coast of the North Island. So on 20th August we headed out into what we thought to be a light wind off the port bow, enough to still make more than 5 knots under sail. We were unable to initially make our rhumbline (i.e. going where we wanted to go) but the wind backed and increased in strength and by the time we were halfway across the Cook Strait we were flying. The wind gradually increased to 25 to 30 knots for the next day or so and then tapered off still coming from the same direction, the South West, off the port quarter - a perfect angle. So it was up with the spinnaker and we had a full day's run with perfect conditions.