Jonothan’s Dream Run Back from Noumea

Leaving Noumea

After responding to Peter’s (aka RnB or Jonothan) request for delivery crew on crew.org some weeks earlier, we - Andrew (aka Tangent) and Nigel (aka nigelphilp) finally arrived 12 hours late in Noumea thanks to a delay in the Air Calin service at about 3.00am in the morning – everyone was feeling pretty shagged as we cleared Customs and drove to Noumea.

After a couple of hours sleep we were up and about at Port Moselle Marina in the warm New Caledonia sunshine and following a hurried round of the waterfront markets and supermarket, we’d stocked up on fresh fruit and veg and groceries. Eye popping prices for groceries were a feature – French civil servants are given double pay and it’s not hard to see why.

After topping up our diesel and water and readying the boat for sea, all that was left was a visit to Customs and the Port Captain to complete our paperwork and we were off.

The first leg was short and had us at Amedee Light at about 9.00pm where we picked up a mooring buoy, hoisted the RIB aboard and enjoyed the first of Peter’s legendary meals - a prawn green curry.

Then at 0000hrs we were off, running down the transit from the Amedee leading lights through the pass and then tightening up to head as high as we could towards North Cape.


The Tough Life at Sea

Conditions were pretty good and for the first day or so, we managed SSE in 10-15kt trades. As the huge high started to assert itself to the East of us, the winds gradually backed during the next couple of days through ESE to E and NE and we had warm sunny days. Daily runs climbed (120, 130 and 136 miles) as we fell into the routine and learnt what made Jonothan move.
I got email over the SSB working and fired off the first of our automated position reports so that family and friends could follow our progress at the WinLink website.
We also copied these to Russell Radio – this turned out to be beneficial as atmospherics resulted in extremely poor voice radio contacts until North Cape while data radio connections went through reliably.

I must admit to having a preconceived idea of how fast a heavy full length keel design like a Hans Crustacean – sorry, Hans Christian - could passage (slow).
I soon learnt though that when the wind freed, as long as we didn’t choke the sail plan (full main, yankee and staysail) she was fairly easily driven and would happily and easily maintain good speeds all day. 10 – 12 kts saw 6’s and 7’s on the log and anything over 15kts on the beam resulted in high 7’s and 8’s.

Peter’s regular and generous meals continued - delicious french pasta with pesto for lunch followed by roast chicken (!!) for dinner. Or pizza for lunch and paella for dinner.
We certainly didn’t have a lot to do to burn the calories off as we lazed around getting fatter and sunning ouselves on deck talking about racing, politics, crew.org and brokers…

At midnight on Day 3, Norfolk Island came up on the beam and the wind started to lighten as we sailed through the western corner of the high as it expanded towards Australia. We still managed a daily run of 136 miles before the wind faded completely on day 4 and we were motorsailing with just the main and oily calm seas.

Stopping to fix a wiring connection on the autopilot, we sat still and quiet on an eerily calm and intensely blue sea. A pod of dolphins, about 40 strong broke the oily surface about 300 metres away and disappeared again, a surreal mirage in the middle of an environment we did not normally associate with such calmness.

So it was something of a relief to start the motor again, repairs complete and continue on our way with the autopilot working properly – we’d discovered just how good a job it was doing when we had to hand steer previously.

At about this time, we became aware from the 72 hour weatherfax prognosis that a stationary E-W trough was forecast to develop to the west of Northland in about 3 days and that a low would develop on it and and move across the country just as we were making landfall.

Not wanting to face the southerlies on the back side of this low (Jonothan doesn’t ‘do’ upwind), we decided to keep our daily averages up by motoring in the light 7-8 kt airs and had subsequent daily runs of 140 and 160 miles bringing us into the vicinity of North Cape.

Continued weatherfax prognoses confirmed that we had made the right decision and that we would likely be able to take advantage of the northerlies and norwesterlies on the north eastern quadrant of the low as it passed to our south – we would be able to use them to slip quickly into Opua before the southwesterly change on the low’s back side arrived.

Day 6 saw us pass North Cape with the wind backing and strengthening and running almost dead downwind in 25kts – it appeared that some current was present as the seas and the slop started to stand up and we had our first uncomfortable sailing as well as our first grey skies and rain.

About 2130 and well into Great Exhibition Bay, the norwesterly change came through with rain showers and steadied our motion with our first sailing on a starboard beam reach, averaging 8 kts down into the BOI. Coastal traffic and squid boats were picked up at the same time throwing a bit of excitement into the first night watch after 6 days of sighting only one other ship.

Panaki Light at the Cavalli’s was raised at about 2300 followed closely by Cape Brett light and at dawn we were motoring up the Waikare Inlet and tied up at the Customs berth at 6.00am for a total time of 6 days, 6 hours.


Home is The Sailor

Truly a dream run as far as winds and conditions were concerned – we were all fully expecting an 8 day passage with the possibility of 10 days.

I’m sure Nigel will join me in thanking Peter (RnB) for the opportunity – I think we all agreed that the crew combination worked well – a testimony to the good and friendly nature of crew.org!!