Category Archives: Passages & Crossings

NZ Bound #3 1082 nm till quality craft brews

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22 boats left Wednesday, we waited another day when only 5 boats left. What did we miss? We heard on the SSB that there was champagne sailing out there, so in search of that we go.

Looks a bit sporty?

We are now just about 12 hours into the journey and if we had any champagne it certainly would be shook up and have lost all its great effervescence.

We had a Mexican night onboard, enchiladas and rice, and a salt covered boat, just missing the rest of the margarita.

Still searching for champagne.

Cheers, All well onboard, at least another day of bouncing along.

Passage Planning: Fiji to NZ

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Passage planning is all about preparation and weather. A good passage is one that has favorable weather conditions.  Good conditions include consistent, steady winds at 12-18kts, seas below 1 meter in long increments, no squalls or storms, low cape and low barometer.

Note: For the next 7-8 days we will be LIVE blogging.

Weather, weather, weather!  It can be your friend and your foe.  We live our life watching the weather daily.  Does the wind shift? Will the swell wrap around the island? Is there rain in the forecast? 

We purchased the professional / premium plan for Predict Wind which allows us to enter our boat polars, plan routes, and receive detailed passage forecasts. 

This software, along with feedback from professional weather routers, rally participants, and other sailors, provides us with the valuable information we need to do accurate passage planning.

This particular passage, Fiji to NZ, is very challenging.  We will have to sail across 20 degrees of latitude between two weather systems.  This is an extremely formidable and demanding stretch of ocean.

Well over 100 boats will make this same journey this year. But we will only be sailing with a handful.

The Strategy

We take this passage very seriously, despite this being our 3rd time making this journey. 

The basic strategy is pretty well known.  You leave Fiji on the back side of a high (front) usually in crappy conditions.  You do this so that you can arrive New Zealand before the next low in relatively benign conditions. 

The systems near NZ change frequently and dramatically and tend to be more extreme.

sv Roam wrote an excellent blog post, a lot more thorough and detailed explanation on weather. I highly recommend this descriptive read.

This is what a typical and pretty good weather routing or passage plan looks like on Predict Wind.  We are starting at Fiji (top of the page) and ending in NZ (bottom).  The colors indicate the severity of the wind.

Preparations

There are numerous preparations that go into passage planning.  You’d think we’d have this down after sailing over 70,000 nautical miles and visiting over 33 countries.  But each passage and each country has its own unique preparations.

First of all, there is lots and lots of paperwork!  So much paperwork!

  • Paperwork
    • Departure paperwork for Fiji
      • Schedule appointment with officials
      • C2C Outward Report Form
      • Statement by Master Form
      • Photographs of boat (bow, stern, port, starboard)
      • Crew change Form
      • Crew List
      • Copies of Fiji entry paperwork, boat paperwork, and all passports
    • Entry paperwork for New Zealand
      • Apply online for an NZeTA (temporary visa) for each crew
      • Apply online for Traveler Declaration for each crew
      • Apply online for a Customs Number (Client Code) which gives us Duty Free purchases
      • Submit the Advanced Notice of Arrival Form
      • Submit the C4G Form
      • Appy for T.I.E. (Temporary Import Entry) which allows us to bring the boat into NZ
      • Crew change form
      • Bio Management Plan (6 page document detailing our hull cleaning/maintenance)
        • Provide photographic and video proof of cleanliness of the bottom of the boat including all niche areas (props, thru hulls, rudder, daggerboards, etc…)
    • Submit a Float plan for family, friends, and emergency contacts

Additional Preparation:

  • Pre-cook passage meals and freeze 
    • We made enough food for 3 people for 10 days (that’s a lot of food)
      • Eggplant parmesan
      • Chicken enchiladas
      • Chicken chow mien
      • Gumbo
      • Mongolian Chicken
      • Pasta de la casa (with a nice spice pasta with meat)
      • Chicken wontons
      • Gingerbread cookies
      • Chocolate Pumpkin Cookies
      • English Muffins
      • (3) bread doughs
  • Stow all valuables and breakables
  • Safety gear: put out and make accessible:
    • First aid medical kit, ditch bag, jackline, PFDs, foul weather gear 
  • Reservations at Marsden Cove Marina (where we clear into the country) and Town Basin Marina where we will stay after we arrive
  • Change window shade covers from sunbrella to Phifertex (to allow us to see out better)
  • Convert office cabin into sleeping cabin (for crew)
  • Separate “declared foods” and items to present to biosecurity upon arrival
  • Courtesy Flag: NZ and Quarantine Flag get out and make accessible
  • Clean bottom of the boat (every 5 days, 2 people, 2 hours)

Safety

  • Passage Guardian
    • File a float plan and sign up for passage guardian services
  • Island Cruising Pacific Rally
    • Land support
  • Gulf Harbor Radio
    • Daily check in with position reports and status report
  • Onshore support
    • Our very good friend, Donald tracks us while we are underway and provides weather and onshore support

Communications

We have multiple communications options.  We primarily rely on Starlink as this gives us access to the internet regardless of where we are in the world (even when we are in the middle of the ocean).  However, we do not leave this on 24/7 as it draws a lot of power.  

We’ve had our Starlink fail during a passage last year. So, we have always had communication back up plans.

  • Starlink gives us access to the internet anywhere in the world.  Starlink has been a game changer for us.  It allows us to get weather, check emails, and surf the web in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from shore.  However, it has been known to fail.
  • IridiumGo set up which gives us short text messages, short emails (no photos or attachments), and a few phone calls.  This can only be used in emergencies and cannot be used to surf the web.
  • SSB (HF radio) onboard.  This Single Sideband Radio can reach as far as 6,000 miles away.  We can use this to contact shoreside support.  We check in with the Gulf Harbor Radio daily through our SSB radio.  We can also get weather updates if Starlink and IridiumGo fail.
  • VHF Radio:  We also have a standard VHF radio which can reach other vessels within 24 miles of us.

As you can see there are loads of things we do to prepare for a passage.  All we can do is hope and pray that all of our resources, experts, and information is accurate enough to give us a safe passage.

We depart Fiji on 16 October 2025 heading for Marsden Cove Marina, New Zealand.  

In our last blog post we explore the beautifully authentic, old capital of Levuka.

Drama on the high seas

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First and foremost everything is fine on board, we are continuing on toward Fiji as planned still with a stop in Tuvalu.

We left Majuro bound for Fiji with 2 stops along the way, Kiribati and Tuvalu.  Its the end of cyclone season, Yippie, except for the one that just popped up between Vanuatu and is heading toward New Zealand.  We are heading to “Bula” country, home of friendly people and kava ceremonies. 

When we left the Marshall Islands we had 2 steering helms, 2 rudders, 1 auto pilot and 2 souls capable of steering the boat with any of those.  And we have an emergency tiller too, in case everything goes pear shaped.  Let me say, we have had some “challenges” on this passage south. 

First arriving Kiribati, one of the steering boxes on the starboard side decided 24 years was enough, and demanded attention.   One its bearings on the inside the steering gears rusted through and burst into pieces.  One steering station down. Now we can no longer steer the boat from the starboard helm, and that is also where the gas pedal is.   So picture a clown car with the clowns carrying around the steering wheel, yet the car won’t turn. Turn as you might the steering wheel, helm, just spins indefinitely.   To actually turn, you have to run to the other side of the drivers end clown car to steer and run back to give it gas or slow down.  What can go wrong?  🙂  The clowns always make it work, right?   I actually removed the steering gear (red below) where the bearings disintegrated, so that the pieces and wobbly gear wouldn’t lock up the steering completely.  So whew,  order bearings to repair and head off to Tuvalu.  Not ideal but we have 2 of everything, part of being a catamaran.

Left Kiribati bound for Tuvalu.

The sail started out as champagne sailing doing great speeds and making short work of 700 miles we were making toward Tuvalu. It devolved a bit into prosecco sailing when the speeds dropped a bit, but still great fun.   Day 3 the squalls of the ITCZ (convergence zone between north and south hemispheres), quick wind shifts and gusts made for some exciting times.  Nothing out of the normal for this part of the pacific crossing the equator and the convergence zones.   When the wind went too light and on the nose, it was time to check the engine fluids before starting and to spot any potential issues.  I found the port rudder “control arm” broke at some point, probably during one of those pesky 30kt squalls.  The ones that steel your perfect wind and force you off course.  Thinking back, the broken bit might explain why it took longer than normal to turn downwind to run in the storm.  So the port rudder is down till we find a stainless welder.  Its lashed to the central position now, its just not wobbling too and fro willy nilly, and getting a free ride.

So for those keeping count, we have 1 working steering helm station (port), 1 working rudder (starboard), 1 auto pilot(starboard), and 2 less than pleased souls on board.   And of course the emergency tiller when all else fails.    So now we still use the gas pedal on the starboard side, run to port side to steer, the steering rudder is actually on the starboard side.   Got it?  A bit complicated but we are still trucking along, albeit a bit more conservatively till we arrive Fiji and work on getting cold beer to tackle fixing the steering project.

Is it Fiji that doesn’t like our steering?  2 years ago, one of our rudders vanished on the way to Fiji.  This year, other steering components are making their voices heard. 

275nm to Tuvalu, then another 500ish to Fiji.. we will get there!