S/Y New Dawn: October 2014

Thursday 23.10.2014 at 04:55 (LT):

I cleared out of Fiji yesterday at Lautaka and set sail for Nuvela Passage in the south reef. The wind kept changing direction first from NW, W, SW and S, and rather than motoring against the south wind in the Passage, I changed course and instead we took the more dangerous exit of Malolo Lailai Passage? It is much narrower than the Nuvela Pass and has some reefs which are difficult to see; but all went well and I am glad to have the Forward Looking Sonar up and running after my last repair job. Apart from the continued wind changes, it was, at first, a wonderful sail inside the huge reef, with little waves, to slow us down, and still enjoying the open sea breeze. A bit like sailing in a lake.

Once outside things changed. The wind increased to 15-24 kn from S and SSE, which was on our nose, as our course was to be 189° T for my first WP, namely 750 NM away, on 30° S and 175° E. After many Squalls and loads of rain, the wind started to turn to SSE and the course became more acceptable during the night. But sailing this close to the wind and with the large Fetch, the waves build up and give us an uncomfortable ride. It is likely to remain this way for the coming days and only by the week-end can we expect more easterly wind.

Kai has cooked several meals and they are stored in the freezer ready to be heated up while we are under way. This is great, as in these conditions, it is impossible to cook.

As I am writing this, the wind and waves are again building up with waves of about three to four meters. I have reefed the Genoa with four reefs and the mainsail down by 70-80%, but our speed is 7.4-9 kn.

Friday 24.10.2014 at 05:00 (LT):

The first 42 hours, since leaving Fiji, was most unpleasant. We were forecast to get 10-15 kn wind from SE and rain. Instead we received 18-24 kn from S-SSE and very big waves as well as torrential rain. Life on board became difficult and sleeping almost impossible. This morning we seem to be south of the worth weather system as the wind has moderated to 18-22 kn and it started to changer to the SE, with the waves decreasing to two to three meters, also from SE. OK it does not sound like a lot of improvement – on paper – but we take any small improvement with pleasure. As I write this New Dawn’s movements has become tolerable, but we are still heavily reefed with three reefs in the Genoa and four in the main sail. Our speed has decreased to 5.5-8.5 kn depending on the angel we take the waves. The decks have received a continued wash as waves breaks over them. Guess we can soon start to collect the salt.

Kai managed to warm up some of his frozen food last night, but none of us had much appetite and after a few spoons, Kai was sick, for the first time since joining me. It took our small appetite away and only at 23:00 did I end up eating a bowl of Cornflakes, as I was then very hungry. We are both lacking sleep and as the propagation is very poor at the moment, I have not had the energy needed with the SSB to get the weather forecast via the SSB and Sailmail, as this can, at times, take a very long time to get an acceptable connection. I have been able to upload short emails, but not to download any emails.

Unfortunately, I noted yesterday another problem with the Generator, as it consumed (looses) the cooling liquid. All the 2 liters cooling liquid I had put into the expansion tank was gone. So back into the engine room in this rolling environment. The unblocking, I did a few days ago, is still fine, but I expect that the heat exchanger is leaking so the cooling liquid gets into the seawater cooling system and thus, get lost into the sea. As I am now out of cooling liquid, all I can do is to use fresh water and I put two liters into the system and after the first hours of running the generator, it seems to work. But eventually the water will also be lost. I contacted via email my contact in Holland and I suspect he will confirm that I need a new heat exchanger (costly). So another job has now been put on the already very long “To Do List” for NZ.

Back to the weather. We have not seem much of the sun the last few days, but as I am writing this, the clouds are almost gone and the stars have appeared. The sunrise is imminent and judging from the colours in the sky, it promises to be a magnificent sunrise. What a great change. We are now south of 20° S Latitude and, as far as I can see, should be south of the poor weather we have had since Fiji.

I hope we will encounter warmer weather the coming two days, but I fear, as we get closer to the 30° S Latitude, we will get variable winds, which will slow us down. That would be a pity, as further south there is a very bad low developing across from the Tasmanian Sea (from AUS.) and covering the North Cape of NZ, with supposedly strong SW winds. If we can keep a good speed, we might avoid the worth parts of that system, but if we are slowed down around 30° S, we are likely to have to face it eventually. A dilemma in this area.

Many yachts have had serious problems in the passage to/from NZ and the Tropic, as systems comes across north NZ at a three to six days interval. Since such a crossing takes seven to ten days, it is almost impossible to avoid these Gales. Our friends S/Y Criann from DK (HR46), whom I assisted in 2009 with routing and weather, blew their mainsail as he reefed too late and too little. My other friends, S/Y Bandit from NZ (Moody 46), blew, ten days ago, their Genoa and spray hood during the approach to NZ and they told me the conditions were “ugly”. Their weather appeared to be similar to what we are facing on closing in on NZ. There are numerous similar stories each season. So one can ask “why sail here”? A good question, I guess?

Saturday 25.10.2014 at 04:45 (LT):

As I mentioned above, the first 40 hours since leaving Fiji, were not pleasant sailing. Too big waves and too strong wind from the wrong direction, which kept us busy and made life uncomfortable. However, during the last 24 hours the conditions have improved, a bit. We had partly covered sky yesterday and some sun. The seas have moderated, to the extend that I will call it “Pacific sailing”. The wind has steadied to 8-16 kn, but its direction remain at SSE. This mean we can’t hold the course of 187° T yet and thus are heading further west of my WP (175° E and 30° S). The positive point of this is that a bit more westerly direction, the better we should be positioned if, as it looks like, we will get strong SW winds the last 300-400 NM before NZ. There is a SW system developing for the next week and we will probably not be able to avoid getting into parts of it. On the forecast, it does not look good and it is this kind of system that, for ages, has caused havoc to yachts and many sailors has avoided to sail to NZ, because of that. In addition, I expect variable wind soon, but hope we will not need to motor through the windless parts.

We are now getting into the higher latitude and, this night we crossed the 23° S. This mean that the temperature is dropping rapidly and it is overcast, so we need long pants during the day and at night watches we need a jumper as well. The water temperature has now dropped from 28° to only 23°. It is early spring in NZ and the coming day will be even cooler, as we continue heading south. Last night I unpacked my “Dyne” for the first time. It has been stored away since spring 2013.

Sunday 26.10.2014 at 07:00 (LT):

The weather has finally stabilized a bit and the wind started to turn to the east. I expect it will not last long, as the Barometer is raising – thankfully slowly – meaning we are getting closer to the high, which unfortunately is likely to bring us variable winds during the coming few days. If we get that, motoring will be needed, especially each time the wind direction will change as the forecast predicts it will from E, N, NW and SW. Usually in between each change the wind drops. PS: We ended up motor sailing for five hours.

I have changed our course to WP: 172 E and 30 S. This is bringing us much more west than planned and will increase the NM we will have to cover. However, the purpose of this WP is that W and N of NZ’s north coast, a Gale force system is likely to develop from SW with very strong winds of 35-45 kn. As we might get into this system when approaching NZ north coast, we should be able to ease the sheets and not have the wind too much on the nose. As far as I can see, these strong winds should arrive early morning 29 October and last for 2-3 days(?), so there is a small chance that we will only get part of its tail – hopefully.

Today we have a nice sunshine and good steady wind and it is a nice change to get some warm temperatures, compared with the cool nights. We are approaching 25° S and 174° E and have about 650 NM to Opua, so we should soon be half way. the water temperature has dropped to 17° C.

We have been at sea for about four days and, so far, have only encountered one cargo vessel when we left Fiji. Since then we have seen no other vessels and nothing has shown up on the AIS, nor on the radar. One thing surprises me, is that we have not seen any aircraft. Usually when we are approaching civilised countries, we see airplanes overhead at night. But here we have seen none – yet.

Three new jobs have appeared: 1) The fridge has stopped working. I suspect it need more gas and I will have a look at that as soon as we stop moving too much. 2) The Auto Pilot Drive started last night to make a strange noise. No idea what it is, but it could be the oil level for the hydraulic, or it can be a seal that is veering. This can be a big job to do while at sea, as I first have to dismantle the aft bed to get to the drive. 3) I received – after months waiting – an email from ENWA, the Swedish water maker company, about the possible cause for the Maker to stop after 60 min running. It is technically complicated, but I will have to try out his suggestions, even though I am not sure what he mean.

Life on board is now well into its routine with the watch system we have used since leaving Bora Bora, namely four hours on and four hours off. It does deprive us from the needed sleep, but for a small trip like this (about 1.100 NM) and both of us being young and fresh, it works well.

Kai, being a vegetarian, does most of the cooking of the evening meals and I adopt to what he cooks. For breakfast and lunch, we each make our own food.For my part, as I have no more Yoghurt, I eat Muesli or Cornflakes at 04:00 and sandwiches for lunch. Kai often cook Pancakes for his breakfast and cook vegetables for lunch. Thus we are big gas consumers.

Apart from my watches, I have many tasks like: generating power, make water, get emails and weather forecasts via the SSB, repairing whatever breaks,daily checking the rigging and everything else for shaving, and then repair it, etc.. I start to see that the sails are wearing. The Genoa might not last for the coming 15-20.000 NM as it has already done close to 55.000 N. Perhaps it can last for another 10.000 NM? The main sail has now sailed with me for about 63.000 NM and its starts to show. Several repairs have kept it going, but how much more can it do? I do have a spare Main sail that has hardly been use, but it is a batten Elvstrom sail. First, I don’t like the batten system and secondly I find the Elvstrom sails are poor quality (ref the Elvstrom Genoa I had when I bought New Dawn).