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Hi Guys,
After nearly two weeks hanging in the Tasman Sea we have finally made it to Nelson NZ, arriving last Saturday arvo.
The trip across gave us some of the worst conditions possible for sailing twelve hundred miles.
Sailing started off well, sailing into a headwind the sea was rough but the wind was off the nose enough to sail.
On the second day a low system came through which was an interesting first experience to watch. On the horizon you could see the clouds forming into towering cumulus, the wind temperature was changing from warm to cold, then back to warm again and the swell started to change into a mixed up mess of waves. By mid-afternoon the clouds had closed in and within a second the wind had changed from the north east to the south West, going from a mild 15kn to about 30kn. The storm lasted about four hours and brought good sailing conditions until it pasted with the same speed as it came, leaving us with nil wind for the next couple of days. Unfortunately when there is no wind the self-steering system cannot work so we were left doing three
hour shifts at the helm, with the engine driving us.
For the couple of wind free days wh had, we sat and listened to the daily weather reports on the radio telling of a huge low coming our way bringing gale force winds. Then late in the arvo on the 24
th it arrived, bringing 30kn to 35kn winds. At 11pm the full force hit us. We were both below having a sleep when all of a sudden the wind increased to around 45kn and gusting, sending the boat off course and into the waves. Nothing could have prepared me for the next few days of dealing with a storm this strong and I was fucking glad when it finished.
After putting our wet weathers on as quickly as possible we went on deck to drop the sails. We set the storm jib and set a sea anchor consisting on knotted rope set out the back of the boat to keep us running along the waves. After everything was set I finally took the time to look at what we were in. We were surrounded by ten meter waves that reached as high as the top of the mast
of the boat. I felt like we were inside a cork spinning in a washing machine. After a few more hours the storm picked up even more making it impossible to sail so we dropped the storm jib and set a sea brake out the back of the boat. A sea brake is basically a big fabric funnel attached to a length of rope that you put in the wave behind the one your boat is on so when you ride up or down a wave the sea brake keeps the boat straight. After setting the sea anchor we went below and slept for the night, not that I did much sleeping. I spent most of the night listening to the wind generator which could not be slowed by its magnetic brake, spin out of control and slowly melt up the electronic controller for it, which was next to my head giving off the smell of melting electrical bits and pieces for the night. Amazingly the next day it was still working but had broken some of the clamps that held the tower on and lost its nose cone. Apparently Chinese wind generators brought off EBay can be of good
quality after all.
By the morning Matt decided that we had to keep on making progress so we went up, unrolled the furler and started sailing again. Now the wind was too strong for the self-steering to work so we decided to do hour shifts at the helm. Matt went first as he had slept a lot more than me the night before as he had a much better idea of what we were in for and was adamant we were quite safe. About 45 minutes later I was thrown out of bed as the boat had spiralled out of control. I jumped up on deck still in my undies to find that mat had got the ropes to the front sail bound up when he was trying to reduce sail and had completely lost control of the boat. I took the helm and tried to keep the boat straight. After doing a 180 and having the mast hit the water mat finally got the ropes sorted and I went back below deck to gain some sort of post adrenaline control over myself.
For the rest of the day the wind died slowly but remained strong with huge squalls coming through every hour or so making the boat very hard to sail. Due to this mat had to do most of the sailing for the day as my confidence and skill levels were a bit lacking to sail the boat without mat there to assist.
By the next day the wind had completely gone again, which was definitely a relieving change and a chance to recuperate. We motored for the day and decided to have a well-earned rest that night so shut the motor down for six hours and had a sleep.
For the next three days there was not a bit of wind so we were back to doing 3 hour shifts again. This becomes very tiring after a while, I think I listened to every single track I have on my ipod during those three days twice and you begin to get a permanent head ache from the constant engine noise. On the flip side tho, you get plenty of time to stare at the stars which is a pretty amazing sight at sea during the night and watch enormous Albatross fly majestically around during the day. There were also mutton birds still flying around, which I gather was because they were migrating back to wherever they come from after spending summer on the coast of Australia breeding.
After no wind for three days we finally got a day with usable wind but unfortunately it only lasted until night where it swung to our nose, preventing us from sailing yet again. We fired the motor back up and started pushing into it. It becomes really rough when you’re heading into the wind as the bow of the boat is constantly being hit by waves so it is definitely the worst conditions to be in for long periods of time as not only is the motor running at full revs to make the boat go forward, making heaps of noise, it is also bloody rough and bouncy.
We were back to doing three our shifts again and not really sleeping in our three hours of as it was too rough. The wind didn’t change up until we changed heading in the Cook Strait for Nelson. Here we had about two hours sailing before wind yet again swung to our nose but at least we were now only a day away from the finish line.
That afternoon we ran out of fuel so put our emergency 40 litres in and worked out we had just enough fuel to reach Nelson if we kept the engine running at low revs. Unfortunately by early evening I was steering and watching our speed go from 5kn down to 3kn as the wind picked up making bigger waves for us to smash into. We could not increase our engine speed to compensate with the increased swell so our only option was to start sailing and tacking across the wind doubling the distance we had to travel to reach nelson.It was nice to sail with no engine noise for a change at least.
By mid-morning after both of us being awake for more than 30Hrs we could see the city of Nelson. The wind stopped, and as we were in a bay the sea became flat making a nice easy motor into port. We tied off to a Tug boat and Customs came on board to go through the boat. After two weeks without a shower the stench they had to endure must have been bloody awful. Customs was surprisingly easy and within an hour we were tied up in a Mariner, tired worn and glad it was all over.
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