Boat Projects in Paradise

The winds have been light for the most part of the week we have been in New Zealand and the skies sunny. Rani with her knack for timing, has left this fair land in summer and returned to the darkest days of December to visit British Columbia where she has work lined up at a Pharmacy in Parksville. I will remain on the boat, working through the list of projects (about 40 at this point) and making her ready for a passage next season. I plan to do this work in various bays around the north end of the north island - Bay of Islands, Whangaroa, etc. I Will post pictures and descriptions of what I find.

Projects completed so far include cleaning 4 years of surface rust spots from the 'stainless'steel, taking off the running backstays, which had hairline swage cracks and bringing these in for replacement, a rig inspection (mentioned in an earlier post), removing the cockpit level anchor light and wiring in the mast-head anchor light after putting in a new LED bulb.

The price of 12 volt LED bulbs has fallen dramatically since we left in 2008. Back then I looked at replacing 25 watt anchor lamp with an LED bulb and the cost was $50 (Canadian)! It is now about $13 (Canadian) even in New Zealand where boat bits are expensive on average.

Removing the wiring for the cockpit light that I put in shortly after we bought Ladybug proved to be a chore. When I installed this, I did a very good job of tying off the wire and feeding it neatly through various bulkheads and lockers. This meant I had to remove everything from our 'closet' - the large quarter berth where everything that does not fit in a locker is stored - spinnaker, spare genoa, inflatable kayak, etc. This allowed me to wash off the staysail, which had got salty on the last passage and re-stow various pieces of gear that usually lived under the berth. The wire snaked through the lockers under the quarter berth, then into a book closet and finally through a bulkhead into the area under the cockpit.

In the process of crawling into the lazarette via the cockpit locker - a feat worthy of Houdini because you have to squeeze between the steering column, 2 cockpit drain hoses, and a bulkhead - I noticed the automatic bilge pump hose hanging in mid air. Its end had perished and When I touched it, it crumbled into fragments. I presume this is due to years of exposure to heat from the sun. It is in such an impossibly inaccessible place that it rarely gets looked at. I must have crawled in and out of this space 6 times, broken up by a 1.5 hour rowing trip into the marina area for new hose and a joiner in order to fix this. Thus a one hour long project escalated into a day long ordeal.

I am in Russell today and will do some grocery shopping before heading out to the Bay of Islands.

Good News about the Rigging

We had a rig inspection done today by Hamish from Cater Marine and he gave us a clean bill of health. He assured us that the light ripples in the tapered section of the mast are the normal results from the welding process. The mast taper is produced by cutting a section out of a straight mast and welding this mast section back together with multiple passes. The heat from the welding distorts the aluminum producing regular waves.  Hamish also told us that the rigging looked to be very well done and in good shape as well as being a little over-sized for our boat. We were very relieved to hear this!

We are having new running back stays made up because we found hairline cracks in the swages on the old ones. Once these are back in place we should be good to go.

Recovering in the Bay of Islands

The problem with booking a flight months in advance is that it can make you do silly things. Rani leaves on Saturday for Canada, so she has less than a week here to visit with friends and get herself organized for the trip home and a follow-on trip to the UK to visit her family. After our arrival and less than 2 hours sleep we spent a full day exploring Russel with our friends Holger and Roz. The next day we joined them on a drive to Whangarei Heads where we visited their farm at Home Port, did a little work around the garden, and enjoyed their beautiful property, which is set back from the sea with sweeping views of old growth forest. We also crammed in a visit with Rob and Jo (off Blue Moon) who are finishing up the construction of their spa and B&B just down the road from Home Port.

The next day, both our bodies said ENOUGH and we slept in and had a day 'off'spent with Rani trying to organize things for her visit to Canada while I cleaned and polished all the stainless steel fittings on the boat. Do you have any idea how much stainless steel can be found on a typical cruising boat? It took 10 hours of cleaning with an oxalic acid mixture and I still have half the wind vane and several blocks and fittings to do. Then these all have to be polished to slow down recurrence of rust staining. I have a list of 37 projects to complete on the boat and plan to tackle at least 1 a day for the next couple of months. Some are large and some a few hours long - nothing major.

Last year Rani left New Zealand without saying good bye to the friends with whom we had spent a a good part of a year crossing the Pacific. So, this year, we are busy filling the calendar with potlucks, meetings in bars and restaurants, and drinks on various boats. At last count we will try to fit in 6 engagements in the next couple of days. Then Rani has a bus booked from Opua to Auckland where she flies to Vancouver on Saturday evening. I will stay on the boat and work on boat projects while we figure out what we will do next year. 

Day 8 & 9 - Safe Arrival in Opua

We sailed on a broad reach for the last couple of days of our passage, arriving off the Bay of Islands early on Saturday morning. In the pitch black we motored up the channel to opua, following the excellent New Zealand charts on our computer with me on the bow as a lookout with a bright headlamp. Despite a slight current against us, we had no problem maintaining 3-4 knots of boat speed.

We arrived around 4 am and had a little difficulty coming alongside with a strong current setting Ladybug away from the dock such that I required Rani's help to get her lines on the dock cleats. We had no problems with our kava bowls and baskets and gave up only a few veggies and 1 apple.

We are now anchored up in Russell visiting our friends Holger and Roz who moor their boat here and work as painters in this lovely community. The back bay away from the ferry wharf is a lovely anchorage and very secure. We plan to go down back to Opua on Monday to meet up with our friend on 'Slip Away' and 'Gato Go' who are just coming in from their passage and to visit other cruising friends who now live and work in the area.

Day 7 - Broad Reaching toward Cape North

We spent yesterday under full canvas, broad reaching in a big rolling swell with a pleasant but light westerly wind. Row upon row of low cumulus clouds drifted past us - the type of clouds that look like people and monsters and geological features. At one point a huge middle finger appeared to be directed at us, but this fortunately morphed into a rooster.

The wind continued through the night, but lighter, and we saw the North Cape of New Zealand at dawn this morning.

Our position at 0700 NZ time, 1800 GMT was 34 14 S and 173 16 E with a total 121 NM run in 24 hours, 109 NM made good.

Day 6 - Testing the Rigging and our Patience

Shortly after the morning radio net, we decided that the only way to go to NZ with a light following breeze would be to hoist the spinnaker. We always do this with some trepidation, which has only been increased by our recent forestay breakage. Still, the alternative would be more motoring.

The swells were large and confused - a big 2.5 to 3 meter swell from the gale force winds to the NE of us and additional north and northwest lumps mixed in. This combined with winds of from 2 to 4 knots made setting and flying the spinnaker tricky. When Ladybug was thrown on her side by the swell on her beam, the wind created by this motion would either cancel or accelerate the real wind, causing the sail to collapse or snap open with a bang. This put huge loads on the mast head, furler foil base (where the spinnaker tack is lead through a plastic glove that fits over the furled jib), and the spinnaker sheet. As the wind filled in, this jerky violent motion relaxed and we were able to make about 17 miles over a few hours sailing almost as fast as the wind. The loads we put on our rig during this time give me more confidence that we did a good job with our repairs and that the upper mast section is strong!

As the wind increased, we decided to drop the chute and continue under full main and jib, which we were able to do until 9:30 pm when the wind was so light that we were unable to keep the sailed filled. The big swells were still with us and in order to save damage to the sails and running rigging, we downed sail and motored through the night. Just before sunrise the wind filled in again, this time from the west. We hoisted the main and jib and are running downwind on starboard tack for a change. This was not a forecasted wind direction and perhaps it tells us that we are now sitting above the low trough that we know is currently giving northern New Zealand a pasting.

Our position at 0700 NZ time, 1800 GMT was 32 22 S and 172 40 E with a total 107 NM run in 24 hours, 96 NM made good.

Day 5 - Windless

The wind continued to lessen through the morning still out of the northwest. Around 3pm the wind dropped below that critical threshold where it was enough to prevent us thrashing the sails in the large cross swell rolling in from the nearby low. We turned on the engine and have been motoring ever since, with a short break around supper time for the evening radio net. The forecast shows very little wind between here and New Zealand today, but hopefully something will come up tonight or tomorrow morning.

Our position at 0700 NZ time, 1800 GMT was 31 04 S and 171 33 E with a total 98 NM run in 24 hours, 87 NM made good.

Day 4 - Ships that pass in the night

We were in the vicinity of two low pressure systems for 36 hours, finally coming out of them early this morning. Three reefs in the main and little to no jib for all this time with short lumpy seas making it difficult to move about below without two good hand holds at a time. We heaved to for 6 hours to let the low move further south of us hoping to avoid the higher winds forecast for just below us.

Early this morning the AIS alarm went off, reporting us on a collision course with the bulk carrier "San Francisco" en route from NZ to New Caledonia. I hailed her on VHF and asked her to watch out for us, giving our position, course, and speed. The officer on watch said he would, but the ship continued on her same course and speed and we were required to take evasive action, pulling in the jib and rolling off dead downwind. Even so, we passed well under a mile apart and could have collided had we not altered our course and speed. A half hour later a sister ship was also detected by the AIS on a parallel course to the other carrier. Again we would collide or come extremely close without action, so without bothering to call I turned Ladybug off dead downwind again and we passed about 1/2 a mile apart.

The wind has clocked into the west now and we jibed around 4 am and are running on starboard tack for the first time in 3 days. The seas are still rough amid drizzle and heavy cloud. It is noticeably colder and we are wearing fleeces for the first time. We have both not had much sleep for two days, but hopefully the wind and seas will steady today and we will have a pleasant couple of days as we approach the North Cape of New Zealand.

Our position at 0700 NZ time, 1800 GMT was 29 42 S and 170 55 E with a total 114 NM sailed over 24 hours, 103 NM made good.

Day 3 - Serene to Stormy

Sunday began with a lovely sunrise, blue skies and beautiful beam reaching with 8-10 Knots from the northeast. We even managed to sit in the cockpit for a bucket bath! But, it was not to last. Puffy white clouds dotting the blue sky disappeared and were replaced by a sullen grey cloak and drizzle misted the decks. We watched an old Al Pacino and Robert de Niro movie, "Heat", while the computer could still balance on the dining table and then cooked a large pot of vegetarian chilli.

By mid-afternoon the winds were up to 20 Knots and we had a second reef in the main. The sea had become rougher and Ladybug was bouncing along merrily at 6.5-7 Knots. At 6pm we were in the middle of squally winds gusting over 30 Knots, so we put in the 3rd reef, and furled in most of the jib. The windvane was having issues with the short sharp high swells, so an hour later, we furled in the jib altogether and hoisted the staysail. Chris went out in his undies, a rain jacket and harness as the conditions were very rough with green water washing over the bow constantly.

At night we downloaded another GRIB weather forecast and looked at various scenarios to avoid being stuck in the low. Should we heave-to by pointing NW or East, slow down or run with it? In the end, we decided to run with it as we were going in the right direction. We beared off by a few degrees to avoid being tossed around so much.

At 10 pm, the alarm on the AIS went off. A motor vessel was approaching on a reciprocal course and would pass within 5 miles of us. It was 8 miles away and we could not see it visually. We watched its progress on the small VHF radio screen and were happy to see its lights as it passed us at 5 miles.

At 0320 we heard the staysail flapping. The steering line had broken on the windvane, due to chafing, and the boat had turned into the wind. Using the autopilot temporarily, Chris used the swim ladder hoist line to repair the break and soon had the windvane back in action. Back to the warmth of the cabin!

Our position at 0700 NZ time, 1800 GMT was 27 36 S and 169 35 E with a total 151 NM sailed over 24 hours, 148 NM made good.

Sanyo Eneloops

I like to promote products that we find to be very useful or particularly good value for money. On Ladybug I we used a lot of AA batteries for things like flashlights, clocks, and the SSB receiver. I found that the performance of NiMH batteries was good for a while, but they rapidly became useless because they would not hold a charge for any sort of reasonable storage period. This was a huge issue with the Pentax digital SLR that I had deliberately purchased because it used AA batteries (and was also water sealed). In researching the problem with this camera, I came across a post on a forum about a new technology that had been applied to NiMH rechargeable batteries by Sanyo that apparently cured the problem of rapid discharge during storage.

I bought a set of these Eneloop 'pre-charged' batteries and have only had to recharge them a couple of times in 2+ years of use in the Pentax SLR (which admittedly gets very light use). I recently bought more of these batteries, some from Duracell (apparently rebranded Sanyos) and have found that they work very well in the handheld GPS and in flashlights and head lamps. Highly recommended - we will be recycling our regular NiMH batteries or using them in very low drain devices like clocks.

You can buy these batteries at Canadian Tire or MEC in Canada. Just make sure the package says "pre-charged" or something to that effect. They cost about $15-$20 for 4 AA batteries.