Tuesday, 15 May to
Sunday, 20 May 2018
We left the berth at 0730 and motored out of the Seaway with
a 15knot SWer and moderate swells in company with 32 other boats. By midday we
had 25 knot winds and we put in the second reef. The wind was southerly so we
were on a reach, but the seas were very confused and the evening HF sched with
Northland Radio told a story of seasickness on several boats.
By morning we
were almost close hauled and the wind stayed in the SE, SSE or ESE for the rest
of the trip. Luckily the seas moderated during the second afternoon and we had
a much more comfortable second night at sea.
We use a 3 hour watch system at night, starting at 1900.
During the day we just sleep whenever we can! Warren was chief cook the first 2
days as I did not want to risk seasickness but by the 3rd day I was
hopeful that risk had passed. By the third morning we had lost visual contact
with the other boats but had a couple on AIS.
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| Why I like the dawn shift |
The days rolled on and we were trying to keep as far south
as possible in anticipation of more easterly winds closer to New Caledonia. The
fleet was well stretched out by this stage and the weather reports were hard to
fathom. The Predict Wind offshore app uses 4 weather models – and sometimes all
4 differed in what they thought would happen.
The radio scheds told us most crew were on deck now and
enjoying the passage more although Curried
Oats had lost their autopilot and were hand steering. For a crew of two
this is your worst nightmare. Two rally yachts stayed close by and one sailed
just in front so they had something to steer towards. Smart thinking as it is
easy to get off track with nothing on the horizon.
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| Whiskers came to say hi! |
On the fourth day out, Friday, we changed to our genoa in
the now light winds. We saw the Seawind 1250 Whiskers behind us and they motorsailed past and took some great
pictures. We tacked south east while they headed straight for the passage. A
good decision on their part as they arrived 2 hours before us.
The last 2 nights at sea we motored due to light winds and
frequent squalls. They looked bad on the radar but thankfully brought only rain
and not too much wind. As we approached Noumea, boats began to converge and
appear on AIS. We arrived at Dumbea Pass at 1400 on Sunday and were anchored at
Ilot Maitre by 1600.
The trip took 5 days and 8 hours, 15 hours faster than our
2016 trip. We sailed for 97 hours, motorsailed for 8 hours and motored for 23
hours. We had 880 nm on the log but an adverse current for most of the trip
meant we had sailed about 830nm across the ground.
