West Coast Day 1 (around the top)

Today was D-day. The start of the big part of our adventure, and our longest, most intimidating sail yet. Around the top of the North Island, down the West Coast, past Taranaki, and finishing up in Nelson.

After spending a disappointingly rocky night in Maitai Bay, we completed a few last minute preparations before pulling up the anchor; securing the dinghy, tying some jackstays (to tether onto if we have to go to the bow) and a spot of light breakfast.

A very light easterly wind greeted us, and we pulled the mainsail out to assist the engine, heading for North Cape at about 6 knots. Our maths have us arriving into Nelson late Thursday/early Friday - assuming favorable conditions. However we are prepared for the journey to take longer, and set our Coastguard Trip Tracker App to expect us in around Friday evening.

Unfortunately, conditions did not start out exactly how we hoped, we seemed to have got our timing all wrong and were consistently pushing into 1kt of tide. It felt a bit like sailing through mud.

We rounded North Cape at about 3pm and turned our bow towards Cape Reinga, about 15 miles away. We now had a nice 10kt northerly breeze, which encouraged us to roll out our big headsail (genoa). The nowcasting was still advising that there was 15-20kt from the South at Cape Reinga, so we were on the lookout for the change to come through.

Vela was downstairs and heard a mayday call over the radio from a boat somewhere near the Three Kings. We were over 6 hours sailing to get to the area, and with other vessels nearer and better suited for a rescue attempt, we did not respond. After listening in to the chatter, all vessels were eventually told to stand down. The details were a little unclear but we were advised all were safe, possibly a false alarm.

With Nathan on the helm, the wind went light and a very obvious new breeze from the South was coming in. We tacked the headsail across, and hooked into a beautiful 12kt southerly. The breeze continued to build to about 15kt, so we rolled the big sail away and pulled out our smaller headsail (jib). It was a good thing we had plenty of breeze, our speed through the water was consistently over 8kt, but the tide against us was sometimes closer to 3kt. The mud we were sailing through earlier had turned to quicksand!

The closer we got to Cape Reinga, the rougher the seas got. It really is a nasty piece of water. There were large breakers a long way out past the Cape, so we stayed well clear.

We rounded about 6.30pm, and after some obligatory selfies, Nathan handed over the helm and braved going downstairs to cook some Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner.

Afterwards, we settled into an upwind sail in tricky conditions. Heading mostly Southwest, hoping to find a Westerly change to take back in towards the coast. We felt a little behind where we expected to be, but all onboard were safe and well, and we were mostly headed in the right direction!もっと詳しく