January 2010 Nelson, NZ
We just arrived after a 33-day passage from Port Vila to Port Nelson.
Waiting for crew and a break in the weather had kept us in Vanuatu 6-weeks longer than planned.
The weekend before Christmas we had a four-day forecast of favourable northeasterly winds. It was just what we needed to get out of the trade wind funnel and start the passage back to Nelson. On the crew was first mate Kat, my nephew Derrick and Zdenek from the Czech Republic.
We had posted an abundance of Crew Wanted notices all over Port Vila. Of the many responses were ni-Vans looking for work and back packers looking for a new adventure. The ni-Vans didn't have enough money to repatriate themselves and the back packers were put off by the prospect of a passage lasting longer than 4 weeks. We had always had at least 6 crew on for deep-sea passages. However, after discussing the situation with the crew we decided to sail with four.
We cleared Customs and Immigration Monday morning and sailed that afternoon. As luck would have it, all but one Internet connection in Vila were down. From the post office I notified our web master of our departure. Everyone else was uninformed. We hope you checked the website. Our 'Weather Window', as the yachties are fond of calling it, allowed us to close reach our way south along the lee side of the lower chain of southern Vanuatu islands. In four days we had cleared the eastern end of New Caledonia. (The previous season it had taken us 10 days hard on the wind to get this far.) The rest of the passage was the usual variety of calms and shifting winds until 3 weeks into the passage at 36 degrees south. From there we had a week of south easterly head winds including a gale setting us a 100 miles backward toward Tasmania. A wind shift to the north east had us underway again.
The nor-easter became another gale. We pulled reefs in the sails and drove on until the wind died away to calms. With only 100 miles to go we fired up the old Iron Top'sl to motor sail the last 28 hours to Port Nelson.
Waiting for crew and a break in the weather had kept us in Vanuatu 6-weeks longer than planned.
The weekend before Christmas we had a four-day forecast of favourable northeasterly winds. It was just what we needed to get out of the trade wind funnel and start the passage back to Nelson. On the crew was first mate Kat, my nephew Derrick and Zdenek from the Czech Republic.
We had posted an abundance of Crew Wanted notices all over Port Vila. Of the many responses were ni-Vans looking for work and back packers looking for a new adventure. The ni-Vans didn't have enough money to repatriate themselves and the back packers were put off by the prospect of a passage lasting longer than 4 weeks. We had always had at least 6 crew on for deep-sea passages. However, after discussing the situation with the crew we decided to sail with four.
We cleared Customs and Immigration Monday morning and sailed that afternoon. As luck would have it, all but one Internet connection in Vila were down. From the post office I notified our web master of our departure. Everyone else was uninformed. We hope you checked the website. Our 'Weather Window', as the yachties are fond of calling it, allowed us to close reach our way south along the lee side of the lower chain of southern Vanuatu islands. In four days we had cleared the eastern end of New Caledonia. (The previous season it had taken us 10 days hard on the wind to get this far.) The rest of the passage was the usual variety of calms and shifting winds until 3 weeks into the passage at 36 degrees south. From there we had a week of south easterly head winds including a gale setting us a 100 miles backward toward Tasmania. A wind shift to the north east had us underway again.
The nor-easter became another gale. We pulled reefs in the sails and drove on until the wind died away to calms. With only 100 miles to go we fired up the old Iron Top'sl to motor sail the last 28 hours to Port Nelson.
