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Beastly Boat Projects Part II

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We conquer lots of boat projects while we are in the yard at Norsand Boat yard.  Some we hire contractors and some we do ourselves.  Be sure to read Beastly Boat Projects Part I.   Since we had so many boat projects to complete we had to break it up into two blog posts.  Here is Part II.

Heaters

Did you know that Sugar Shack came equipped with heaters?  We don’t have a generator or AC, but we do have heaters.  The problem is that they stopped working. Starboard never really worked and port gave out last season while we were in NZ.  This is our old heating component inside the engine room.  

We had (2) new heating systems sent to us while we were in Fiji and they needed to be installed now that we are in chilly NZ (even though it is summer time we are cold).

We purchased (2) Eberspacher Hydronic M-II systems that are 12voilt, D10W, 86W from Heatso in the US.  Matt installed them and they are a thing of beauty!  Wow what a difference they make inside.  Warm and dry.  Our new heating component and dehumidifier!  We will be going to some countries with high humidity and these units will come in very handy!

The Boat projects continue and both Matt and I are working hard along side our contractors.

The Beastly Anchor Chain

I love our 10mm stainless steel anchor chain.  It is long, shiny, self folding and really strong!  We mark our chain every 10m with a coated webbing from strapworks.com.  The straps that were in the chain were old, ratty looking, and difficult to see from the deck so I wanted to replace them.  I drop all 100m (over 300′) onto the ground and prepare it for cleaning and new straps.

It took several tools to extract the old webbing from each link and a good set of needle nose pliers to help me pull the new stiff webbing through each link.  Then I used ospho to clean up the chain and she looked like new!

Dinghy Repair

We loved our Avon dinghy, but the pontoons were dead and needed to be replaced.  We decided to buy a Highfield 3.6 CL which we regretted. In retrospect, we should have just replaced our pontoons and kept our last dinghy as they just don’t make them that good anymore.

Our dinghy was used for a month before the non-skid (EVA) started coming up.  We were so mad.  We had lots of communications with All Marine the company that sold us the dinghy and the manufacturer.  In the end, after much negotiating and me being a brat, the manufacturer agreed to replace the non-skid at no charge.  New Zealand has a Consumer Guarantee Act which guarantees products have to be replaced or repaired within one year of purchase. I love it!  This is regardless of the actual manufacturer guarantee.  So, they repaired it at no cost to us after I reminded them of this act!

Inverter Charger 12v

Being in New Zealand made us realize that we needed a 220 inverter charger.  We have a 110v inverter charger and we have a 220 charger but it does not invert.  So, we bring our friend Matthew Duckett from Cleigh Ltd. to help Matt install it.

New Mirrors 

This is not one of the “beastly” boat projects but it drove me to beastly states every morning I looked into the mirror.  Our medicine cabinet has pretty damaged mirrors and old rusty hinges.  They are double sided which is super cool but evidently really expensive to replace. So we decide to go with single sided mirrors with a mirror vinyl finish for the inside.

I know it is a small thing but I just love the new mirrors.  We hope to find the hinges in stainless steel as I am not a fan of the mat black, but other than that they are much better.

 

After weeks of being on the hard and working on dozens of beastly boat projects, here are a few photos of sunset on the hard.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occured during our stay a Norsand Boatyard, 7 Nov-22 Dec. Stay tuned out if we are getting kicked out of New Zealand.  Coming up next we share our visa issues.

Passage: Dodging a Cyclone

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Trying to find a weather window from FIji to New Zealand requires a lot of patience and faith.  This passage is known to be one of the most challenging and difficult passages in the Pacific.  Why do you ask?  It is because you have to cross 20 degrees of latitude forcing you to go through several weather systems.  

It takes a lot of strength to prepare myself for a passage – mostly because I know I get so sea sick and it just is not fun for me.   Picking the right window is imperative to having a safe journey.  So we rely on a lot of sources and professional help.

Matt constantly checks 5 weather sources including Predict Wind which has 4 models and Windy.  Our friend Donald is checking on Maxsea and we are working with a professional weather router and hired a passage guardian.  This is on top of the assistance that we get from being a part of the Island Cruising Pacfiic Rally.  

So, we are comparing a lot of resources and information to determine when we should depart on this passage.

Time to go, NOW

We started noticing a rather ugly system forming to the NW of us.  It looked like a cyclone formation but it was way too early in the season so we were flumaxed!  After watching this formation for a few days our weather router advised us to leave immediately as this system was forecasted to go over Vanuatu and then head straight to Fiji.  Hmmmm

The problem was that another, smaller system was forming to the west of New Zealand which would make for a difficult arrival.  So, we watched for another day, talked to all of our experts and made the decision to depart.

The Plan

Depart Fiji as soon as possible and push the boat hard to ensure an arrival by the 26th of October. It is doable, but not ideal.  So, we cleared out of Fiji on the 19th of October at 1330 with a few other boats.

If you remember, our passage last season from Fiji to New Zealand (click here to re-read it) took us 6.5 days and we had a fairly decent journey.  We left with 50 other boats and were very comfortable in the weather window we selected.

So, leaving with only a few other boats in between two systems was extremely nerve racking!  The plan is to “hammer down” and just get there.  The weather models were showing a slight detour to the east before continuing on the rhum line (direct shot from point A to B).

First 48 Hours

The first 48 hours were miserable. We were bashing into the waves making it pretty uncomfortable.  We reefed the sails and pushed onward into the 3m seas.  Yuck.

We headed more east than we wanted because the winds were taking us there.  We ended up going 90nm out of our way to keep the wind in our sails.  Great, love adding more time to an already long passage.

A sunny spot during our gloomy days.  Two birds landed on Sugar Shack and enjoyed a bit of a rest.  It is really unusual to have birds land on the boat when you are hundreds of miles away from land, but it has happened.  I think this is maybe the 3rd time it has happened to us in all of our travels over the last 13 years!  

This little bird landed first and just sat at the helm.  I think he wanted to take the helm from Matt.

The second bird came a few days later when the weather eased up a bit.  It was a red foot boobie and he/she stayed with us for well over 16 hours.

On the one hand it is cool to have proof of life but on the other they poop everywhere!  We tried to shoo him away, but darn if he didn’t keep coming back.  So, we just left him there and hoped the big seas would wash his poop away.

Burning a Lot of Diesel

After two crappy days, we covered 330nm. Not a horrible start, but nothing to brag about that is for sure.  Then we were blessed with a couple of nice sailing days.  The sun was out, the seas were more consistent and came at longer intervals (still 2.5m) and we were pointing closer to the rhum line.  The down side was that we had wind on the nose which meant we had the motors on.  We fully anticipated motoring a lot on this trip as we needed to arrive before the system.  We motor sailed a lot trying to get the most out of each power source.

Matt doing a jig because the skies are blue (he is wearing his dry suit!).

During one of our particularly nice sailing periods we had a breakage.  One of our rail cars for our jib sheet decided it was done and popped off.  It made a horrible noise which forced us to jump up rather quickly.  Luckily the sheet was on the wench and Matt was able to secure a “fix” using dynema.  Not a permanent solution, but it will work until we can get a new part.

The top left is the working rail car on port side and the rest of the photos are the damaged and temproarily fixed starboard car.

A Few Good Sailing Days

We had several good sailing hours which helped lift our spirits.

And a few really beautiful sunsets and sunrises while at sea.

In the mean time we are constantly watching the two systems.  The larger system on the NW got a name…cyclone Lola.  Her trajectory is over Vanuatu and then moving over Fiji.  The lower storm (not called a cyclone yet) is still being called a Tropical Storm.  But as you can see, lots of boats have decided to leave Fiji, Minerva Reef and Vanuatu to get to safer territories.   Keep in mind that the boats are miles apart – we cannot see any of them.

Cyclone Lola

Cyclone Lola is a little brat. Even though the main system is pretty far away from us it was causing some really weird wind shifts.  All we could do was hammer down and push the boat as fast as we could.

The top images shows how the cyclone forms, the wind strength and the direction.  The bottom two photos show how truly dangerous this cyclone is.

Cyclone Lola decided to head more SE and looks like it will converge with the Tropical Depression that was forecasted to hit NZ.  Wonderful!  I am sure you know, but red is bad, black is worse and gray is horrible.

Lucky for us we were able to skirt the outer edges of the storm and make it in to port without too much trouble.  We arrived in NZ on Thursday morning and were rafted up to our friends on Dandelion by 0900.  Thank God!

Formalities

We patiently waited for the officials to come onboard including bio security who took a ton of food, customs and immigration.  They even brought a dog onboard (that was a first for us) to sniff for weapons, drugs, and cash.  Look at his little booties…so darn cute.

New Zealand has very strict biosecurity rules.  We are not allowed to bring in shells, wood carvings, feathers and lots of foods.  Prohibited foods include all meats (cooked, uncooked, canned), dairy, cheese, nuts, produce, vegetables, fruits and more.  We had provisioned for three people to be at sea for 10 days.  Since it was only 2 people at sea fo 6.5 days we had a lot left over.  It is hearbreaking to watch them throw away perfectly good food.

But….we are super happy to be back in NZ and safely tucked in a berth.  

Pasage Summary

  • Total Miles, on rhum line: 1097
  • Total Miles Traveled:  1179
  • Total Time:  161.36 hours / 6.5 days
  • Total Engine Time:  72hours (YIKES)
  • Average Speed:  7.3kt
  • Max Speed: 12.1kt

Just some of our Tasty Passage Meals:

Matt prepared loads of tasty meals.  I was a little distracted and only got photos of a few dinners.  Below we have seasoned pork chops with grilled onions, grilled pineapple and mashed potatos.  To the right we have seasoned chicken fajitas with bell peppers and onions.  Bottom left is Matt’s famous bahn Mi and pulled pork over a baked potato.  Yummmm.

Our poor Island Cruising Pacific Rally 2023 Flag took a beating during our trip from New Zealand to Minerva to Tonga on to Fiji and back to New Zealand.  She deserves a rest.

All in all it was not a horrible passage and it certainly could have been a lot worse had we gotten caught in either of the storms. I am so grateful that we have such a strong and well made boat and a captain who takes care of both of us.  It would not have been such a favorable passage without the help of Donald, our weather router, the passage guardian, and Viki with Island Cruising.

My favorite shots…look at the sliver of a moon in the top photo.

Our blogs run 8-10 weeks behind live events.  This blog occured toward the end of October.  Did you catch our loast blog where we do all the prep work for this passage?

Weather, a fickle mistress, Arrival, Recap

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The weather in these parts can be quite the mess. So we were looking, as many other boats for nice weather windows to leave the ‘cyclone area’ for season and go somewhere “safe” ..

Well I guess there is no really cyclone/hurricane safe place. The systems will just be called by different names to lure you in. We will probably be dealing with typhoons next as we go further west. Ugh,

Anyway, waiting for weather is an extreme exercise in patience, boredom, itchy feet, mental stability all play a role, which might explain things.

In Fiji, we were waiting and watching, a Tuesday looked good – but further looking had winds on the nose. Then a Friday looked good, but had a constrained finish, had to arrive before the following Friday. So why not Thursday .. hmm maybe some on the nose, similar to the Tuesday that we passed on. Then Lola started to swirl around and make noise about coming to Fiji.

Cue “The Clash”, “Should I stay or should I go”.

Leave Thursday so there is a buffer on the Friday deadline. We did this trip last year in nice conditions and it was a 6 day trip, the models were showing 9-10 days for the Thursday or Friday departures. Doing math and redoing math and checking with weather people and routers etc.. It’ll make your head spin. Weather router said, “doable”, not a warm fuzzy by any stretch of the imagination. Doable did sound, well doable.

Thursday got the call, a few other boats were leaving, others were staying. Thursday did have the allure of a couple nice days at the beginning, to get your feet wet on the long passage, And running “away” from the future Lola that was brewing near by gave a bit of weight to Thursday departure. So we cleared customs and departed just after lunch.

Thursday evenings updated forecast after we left, had future Lola (had not be named yet) coming on our path. Ugh more math, double check dates. Want to turn back, more math, nearly 100 miles into 1100 mile trip we could turn back easier than the 90% left in front of us. Decision was, wait till next forecast, continue on. Whew.. next forecast kept future Lola north and not following us. Still had the Friday constrained by cold front from the Tasman sea.

Christine will have her own view of the passage, but for me, a couple nice days for decent sailing, a couple days of pure crap into the winds with demoralizing VMG (progress to destination) followed by a couple good sailing days, and still a looming Friday constraint. So we kept pressing hard and making forward progress with eyes on arriving Thursday, ahead of the Friday cold front. Amazingly enough that Friday constraint has been in the forecast and never wavered one way or another for over a week. We calculated we needed a 6knot VMG (to make 6nm every hour toward the destination) to make it by Thursday. Boat can be going 10knots and only making 3kn VMG which is what was happening on the ‘crappy’ days, where we sailed 80 miles off course because of the wind direction. We made it.

Lola did materialize and did start her way south, kind of regrouped into the forecast you see below. This forecast is for Monday, the boats in the picture should all be in on Friday or Saturday at the most. Just in time to hunker down. Hopefully we will be nicely tied up to a good strong floating dock by Thursday evening awaiting the Friday event that has now tuned into a possible bigger deal with the addition of Lola remnants.

Predicted forecast for Monday.

We averaged 7.3kn for 1200 miles, used a bunch of diesel, broke the jib car, but we made it before the deadline, now time to sleep, clean, secure the boat for 50 knots of wind in the marina.

As the crow files the passage is 1100, we did this in 160 hours so we made 6.8nm per hour as the crow flies. Our VMG goal of 6nm is what we needed to make our Thursday arrival. The 7.3 average was over the entire distance the boat went, of 1200 and change.

Arriving in the dark
Rounding the Whangarei heads at day break

Now back to your regularly curated blog posts.