Sail around new Zealand *tick*

Against all odds, and the tide, we are slowly making our way up the harbour.

Homeward bound

Well it has been a frustrating couple of days to say the least. So close yet so far. Sick of tacking and changing the headsail. Just lost danaide and revs in a wind hole off channel island which is gutting as we have been working hard to stay ahead. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly things can change. These light winds are not our forte.

We are both exhausted and have been pushing constantly. I don't know how dad does it, right now it's only my mantra keeping me going. I have to keep telling myself 'double quarter pounder with extra cheese.'

Update

Still eating Maryanne’s fruit cake! Very tedious sailing, can’t get comfortable, can’t sleep, having to hand steer - beating to windward in lumpy seas, winds Nor westerly variable 10-25 knots.

Too uncomfortable to type.. looking forward to being home soon.

[Dictated over the Phone to Joy]

Leg 4 start

Time to say good bye to Napier. Conditions for the next leg are not looking so hot. See you all in 4 days. Hopefully.

FW: Stewart Island

 

 

From: Donna Goomes
Sent: Tuesday, 20 March 2012 9:01 p.m.
To: Matthew Bradfield
Subject: Stewart Island

 

Hi Matt & Charles,

 

Thought you might like a few photos, will send more when you get home.  Just had 2 sharp jolts of an earthquake here, but planning to head for the hot tub anyway, so hopefully no tsunami for us.  :)  We're fine.  Thinking of you both, stay safe, and give them a run for their money.

 

Donni & Peter

 

Feeding a kaka.  They are all spoiled now, thanks Charles.

 

View from our yard overlooking Halfmoon Bay.  Can you find your yacht?

 

Pretty good guests, we don't let in riff raff. :)

 

Chasing you out of town.

 

Next stop Napier

 

 

Prize giving last night, truxton took it out, well deserved they worked hard and pushed all the way. I'll tell you something, those boys race on a totally different level. When they race they take 17 sails, they only have bottled water, they sleep on a bean bag on the floor, no toilet they hang off the back, they reach speeds of 22 knots, and they drink like no ones business. All in all good guys.

Update from Sunstone

Other people are updating stuff, some of which is getting up on the SSANZ facebook page. here is an update from Tom & Vicky on Sunstone:

"Sorry that we missed reporting during the last half of the leg. We missed Day 4 because it was fairly bouncy beating and I didn't get the computer out. We missed yesterday out of depression and embarrassment.

On Thursday afternoon we had a delightful beat in sunny weather past the Kaikoura Coast, heading into the approaches to Cook Strait. At the evening sched things were looking good and we were well in with the 'aft' end of the fleet. At that point we took our LTO (lightning tack to oblivion) by heading east to stay out of the complications of the strait tides. As it happened those who stood on, Pelagian and Vingilot (the latter particularly) got on the inside of a later major lift, which brought them out well ahead of us by morning. How depressing! The next day's beating to get in with the coast did nothing to cheer us up, while the following day's more pleasant, but demanding windward work was tiring as we struggled to make up some ground. And we did, but not enough to over come the deficit, especially when the evening and night vagaries of Hawke Bay took over and we spent six and a half hours to get from Cape Kidnappers to the finish - one hour of which for the last mile. That we have come second in IRC is still something of a miracle, but we are now well out of contention for the Race overall. Truxton clearly sailed a blinder as did Surreal, while Coppelia must be pretty pleased with themselves as well. However, we think that Vingilot crew, Charles and Matt, are the heroes of the leg. They have taken a heavy cruiser through heavy and light, with a lot of windward work and by our calculations now lie third overall by determination, persistence and skill. Great stuff!

Regards T&V"

New speakers *tick*
New batteries *tick*
Water tanks cleaned and filled *tick*

Now just a tidy and then I do believe there is a party on surreal.

Prize giving is also tonight and we are looking to restart Wednesday morning.

The sail making boys doing the few repairs. A few people blew out spinnakers and tore leech lines. We are lucky enough not to require the sail makers on this leg.

Also on the list today, replacing the cockpit speakers. These we managed to blow just before leaving Stewart island.

Me and dad putting in a new set of batteries. Im not sure if I mentioned, we managed to cook the last ones.

Oh and it's pouring with rain :)

Cleaning up so we can get on and party.

Napier !!!

Well we are finally here first port of call was burger fuel then a shower then a good nights sleep. Now the work starts.

Another day at the office

Well the last 36 hours have been crap. We have spent them beating hard into 30 knots pounding against 3 meter swells.

I think the only things we have eaten today has been a bowl of muesli some rice crackers and a packet of lollies.

Leah if I had whole cloves of garlic I would have eaten them too. I spent most of the day unable to breathe through my nose.

I think I forgot to mention, we managed to contaminate one of our fresh water tanks, and the water tastes foul. Dads been living on coke and I'm down to the last dregs of fruit juice Peter and Donni gave me. But being dehydrated is no fun.

We have also managed to start popping a window out of our hard doger. So far just the corner is loose but it won't be for long.

With the beating came the wet. Everything inside is back to being soaked, nothing spared.

Dads calling for a tack do I will leave it at that.

Matt

back at sea

well 3 days back at sea, feels just like the west coast. last night was one of the most frustrating nights i can remember. we spent 18 hours with no wind slopping around in 2 meter swells. yuck.

at the moment the wind has picked up to 20 NE and we are running with 2 slabs out of the main and the number 3 up., we are expecting the wind to pick up some more as the night goes on.

its so gutting going past all these places and not stopping in to explore! Gwen after everything you have told me about christchurch it was hard to sail past while looking at the beautiful banks peninsular.

i am enjoying doing the skeds with maritime radio, makes me feel very pro. recently we have been doing them on VHF as we are close enough to shore and then we dont have to put up with bad SSB interference. it is a pity we are out of cell range though. we have been listening to weather forecasts about 4 times a day. they lie. it would appear that the weather forecast for tomorrow night has hit us tonight (3m swells included).

i think me and dad are staring to come down with colds. we have started a rigorous treatment of panadol, vitamin C tablets and lots of oranges. hopefully we can kick it, being headachey at sea is no fun (although come to think of it we have much more potent drugs on board).

on the sked tonight we heard there was a boat that rolled in foveaux strait. i think the whole fleet was pretty gutted to hear that. me and dad cant believe something like that could happen to such great people, so close to our departure as well. our thoughts are with all those affected by this tragic event and the people of Stewart Island are in our prayers.

matthew

--

uphill from here on!

Well the first two days back at sea have been relatively plain sailing compared to the west coast. We have been cruising along with anywhere between 15 and 20 knots of wind doing anywhere between 6 and 10 knots of boat speed. So far not too much rain either. From the weather forecasts it looks like we might have to weather a gale past wellington but in my opinion it is more favorable than being stuck with no wind which is what might happen to us tomorrow.

Apart from that im not sure there is much more to report. It is slowly getting warmer but the temperature still seems to plummit at night. Christchurch has crappy cell reception, we picked up 3g off Dunedin but nothing off banks peninsula, oh well.

I did sprain my ankle an hour before the start of leg 3, Dad was on hand to strap up my foot and stick it in a boot, but the pain seems to have subsided. I think dad was more worried about having to do everything than about my ankle hahaha.

As we left Peter and Donni and their sister Wendy took it upon themselves to resupply our food stores. We took on board 3 lots of home made cookies, 1 tub of fudge, a cooked meal (mince and pasta) a litre of juice a jar of home made apple jam, oh and a packet of muffins from Gwen (a key lady in the Stewart Island community). So I dare say we will not starve between here and napier, in fact the real challange is eating it all before it goes off.

Tonight we had dolphins for about 30 minutes. they look like little torpedoes in the flossforessance (I havent figured out to spell that yet) [Ed: Let alone say it properly! "Phosphorescence"!!].  They gave me a big fright as they came up right behind the boat and then surfaced with a loud psshhhhhh ! I thought it might have been a whale.

I'm sure there is a book of sailors proverbs out there, well I have one to add, drawn from the frustration of light wind sailing. Boats are like fat people, they are slow to get going, hard to slow down, and when the going gets tough they chafe all over.

Well I think that's me. It's going to be hard coming home and having to adjust to a normal bed time. I'm so used to sleeping when I want, eating when im hungry, going to the bathroom whenever I need to. It will be an interesting adjustment.

More to follow tomorrow, I personally hope it is just as uneventful. right now we have the spinnaker up and we have already rounded up several times today (I think I have pulled it down and put it up on 3 separate occasions in the last 24 hours). All part of the fun.

Matthew

PS i did smother the mast seal with silicon sealer before we started this leg, but its ridiculous whenever i solve one leak another just seems to pop up out of nowhere, at the moment i am sitting on a very wet chart table cushion. grrrrrrrrrr
--

Last Day on Stewart Island

Check out the SSANZ facebook page, this is constantly being updated and has plenty of images and movies being put up daily. http://www.facebook.com/ssanz.inc

Well, I do believe that an update is long overdue. I have been told that having too much fun is not an excuse for not posting on the blog.

The last few days have been packed with activities and have gone by in a blur. Here are some of the things we did, in no particular order.

First task once we came into Stewart Island (after a shower) was to go see the sail maker. Roger Hall from Doyle Sails has come down to help repair and fix sails for all the race boats, so far he has been very busy. He was also at Mangonui and will be coming to Napier. We pulled the Mainsail off the boat and the number 1 headsail and took them off to Roger to see what he could do. The locals have been very accommodating and have allowed him the use of the pavilion for his sail repairs. He brought with him 2 very heavy sewing machines and we spent the day with him learning how to repair and sew sails.

The repair that took us ten hours I had to unpick and it took all of 5 minutes, it was depressing. Roger however was very impressed with our needle work, so impressed in fact that at prize giving, me and dad were awarded the ‘sail making award’ and given Doyle t-shirts as ‘honorary sail makers’ which was really cool. He also gave us some more thread and another 70 metres of sticky back sail cloth!

Roger has also been great with the local school kids. He had them down to talk about sails and even ended up cutting them a small mainsail for them to put up in their class room.

Prize giving was held on Saturday night and was a great night. The locals provided the food, of which there was lots and SSANZ provided the entertainment. There were local mussels and paua and steak, and I piled as much of it on my plate as I could and stuffed myself (I seem to have been doing that for the whole time I have been here).

The prize giving was held in the local ‘half round’. It has a large gym and was built by volunteer labour (locals) and is immaculate, it’s amazing what they have been able to achieve down here. While everyone else was getting rummed, I had a great game of soccer with some of the local kids, they ended up running me ragged.

Peter and Donnie have been the best hosts. We have been driven around the Island (all 26km of road). What I never realised was that the majority of Stewart Island is only accessible by walking tracks, and even then a lot of it is a nature reserve. There is nothing on the island that is more than 4km from wherever you are whether it’s the pub, or the shop, or the houses down the other end. Everyone here knows what’s going on. They know who is here, who is on holiday, who is married to whom and who is now married to the gardener! There are lots of stories about the locals and everyone has nick names (it’s actually really funny).

One of the jobs we needed doing was to repair the car that holds pulleys for the self-tacking stay sail (we sheared off the U bolt in a storm). Unfortunately Stewart Island doesn’t have a chandlery, only the 4 Square that seems to stock almost everything. We ended up pulling a saddle off the deck because no one seemed to have anything that would fit. After a conversation with Helen (who owns the local hotel and pub) she told us to head down to her workshop and get it repaired. The next day we borrowed Peter’s 4x4 and headed 5 minutes down the road to a small tin shed. There we met Squirt, the local metal man. He helped us heat and bend and buff the stainless saddle and mount it on the car. It works perfectly and hopefully will last until we can get back home!

Last night was very funny, every Sunday night is Quiz Night down at the pub. So we tagged along for the experience. And what an experience it was. A local gal called Vicky runs it (she looks like a biker chick, but has a heart of gold). So we teamed up with Peter and Donnie and Tim and Cam (from Surreal) and gave it our best shot. The night was good fun and we didn’t come last! Vicky has a great vocabulary and used some choice language, she also takes to people that talk with duct tape! We were fortunate to be able to witness this great spectacle first hand.

Unfortunately I have run out of time, and the lack of internet doesn’t allow me to post pictures, once I get to Napier I will sort all that out and there will be a ton of videos and pictures up to look at.

Matthew

Amature Handycam

hi guys, spent all of last night uploading a few clips. feel free to check them out. they are just a random selection of some of the video we took coming down the west coast. enjoy.

Click here to see it on youtube.

Bucket List - Sail Puysegur in a storm warning *tick*

So now i have a bit of time on my hands i can tell you all about the 2 days prior to finishing. all started out peachy, breezing down the west coast. We heard the wind forecasts and knew we were in for a bit of a blow. the Monday night we dropped the main early on and were running downwind just under number 3 head sail, doing about 7 knots, Revs were in sight behind us. The rain started falling and the wind started picking up. It was freezing. before night fall we had rolled away the head sail and were running with the try sail and only. The wind picked up, 40knts gusting 50knts, we didn't have anything for dinner that night. By that time we had shut the cabin top and put the wash boards in, me and dad taking turns outside, not much shelter with the wind and rain pelting us from behind. around 2am we were getting 55kts constantly and gusts that sent our wind meter to 00.0 ( as it only reads up to 60 knots). at this stage we were having to hand steer, about 30mins each taking turns (sleep down below was impossible, squabs were all over the floor and everything was wet, although with the thumping and violent movement of the boat you couldn't sleep anyway). We reached a point were i was trying to nap on the cockpit floor and dad was having to pee in the cockpit drain, harnesses on, soaked through our we weather gear, shivering and not saying much. Wind was gusting over 60knts according to the wind gauge and we were being hurtled down waves (we actually had a rough cross swell and although they weren't that big it made for an uncomfortable trip). Constantly checking the rig (we had both running back stays on and try sail sheeted through spinnaker blocks over the boom) we noticed that the sheet had become jammed in the side of the pulley and the block was either going to snap or the rope was going to frey through. So in 60knts we came up with a plan. i crawled back and with a snatch block (get a couple if you don't have them, handy as anything) and with a tether secured it to the aft sampson post and put another sheet through it. disaster averted. that was about as exciting as it got really. we had the odd wave break over and almost broached a couple of times. we were lucky though to come out without a serious broach or knock down. Sunstone had a knock down and suffered some damage to their self steering gear as well as bending one of their stanchions as a wave tried to take off with their tied down jib on the foredeck.

Having lasted the stormy night round Puysegur it was now up to us to complete the final little bit to get to Stewart Island. We were heading down towards Foveaux with about 30 knots, a full main up and the number 3 head sail. we didn't know where sunstone or revs were as they had taken the corner wide. visibility at this stage was only about 2 miles, heavy fog and a drizzle from the night before, temperature still well chilly. all is going good up until about 20 miles off the finish. the wind dies. it just dies. we are sitting there with revs less than a mile behind us, and sunstone about six in front. we had just come out of a storm and were stuck with the sails flapping. this is just as its about to get dark. rain sets in and we are going nowhere. we changed up to the number 1 in the pouring rain (good call and dads part) and tried our best. after 30 minutes of going backwards in 1knt of current we decided to stuff it. we rolled the genoa up (we had already repaired 1 hole in it from having it flap in light winds) and went hunting for the wind under main alone. apparent wind my friend. i made some soup and heated up a few bread rolls and by the time we had finished that the wind had started to freshen. we worked the sails furiously to keep the wind. Revs were behind us but we could see them working just as hard. night came and wind picked up to a shaky 13 knots. we were managing to point doing about 9 knots towards the finish. hoping to catch sunstone before they crossed the line. we came within spitting distance of the rocks in pitch black steering by GPS alone. finally we made it to half moon bay where the wind died completely. we had to do 3 tacks just to get in the small bay up to big rock and the finish.

and what a great feeling finishing was. they sounded the hooter and we put the sails away, roger and Steve were dropped on board and we picked up a mooring. that all done we left the boat in a shambles and went to have a drink with tom and Vicky (sunstone). We were all buzzing and were too wired to sleep. what a great feeling it was to have finished such a long leg and after all the gales we had to finally be able to stop! we ended the night up with Peter and Donni, our wonderful hosts who received us at 1:30am this morning.

That is the tale. ill fill you in about Stewart island tomorrow.

Wind and waves

the cross swell made for some ugly breaking seas

the wind whipped up the sea spray and the temperature was numbing

the broken spinnaker pulley

our quick repair

Tom after the finish on Sunstone

Me and Vicky having a good laugh and smelling feral

Stewart island

Just a quick post, this is us having lunch with Peter and Donni our wonderful hosts.

Leg 2 - Stewart Island, Finished

Just to update you, we have finished the 2nd leg to Stewart Island. We are currently being billeted on the island, i thought i would just post this up quick before i go to sleep. i am exhausted, and me and dad have had less than 3 hours sleep over the last 48 hours. i will fill you in about last nights storm tomorrow. We had winds exceeding 120km/h and some great waves.

the trackers are playing up a bit so don't believe everything you see, we finished behind Surreal then Sunstone and have 3rd on line honors (its so cool we actually placed!).

lots happening, will try and put it all up in due course.

Matthew

Bottom of the mainland !

everytime someone calls it the mainland i think of a block of cheese. makes me giggle.

today the excitement has set in, im sure you can see on the tracker we hugged the coast for quite a while. The mountains are so beautiful and the shoreline is just rugged cliffs. Originally we had headed in to find shelter in which to pull the main down. Once we got close however we looked at the rocks in the Milford Sound and decided not to risk it. We got the main down easy enough and have since been running just under headsail.

Now the wind has picked up and the sea state worsened. it looks like a tempest! we are running under trysail and staysail only. (we put the main down when we started cracking 15 knots).

what else can i tell you. We have actually had a fun day. Butter chicken for breakfast cause dad felt like it, then we spent most of the day just chatting, telling war stories. Dad was a very naughty boy. then carbonara for dinner and then buttoning down the hatches for tonight.

The forcast is telling us to expect 55 knots and heavy seas, it has already started raining heavily. We are in for a fun night.

We had a good chuckle today at Taupo Maritime radio, who kept calling Sunstone as Sunstroke. Its funny how its the little things that do it.

i predict that we will finnish sometime wednesday. i am so looking forward to stewart island. a good shower, a good meal, some stories, and im keen to explore a bit. Will be interesting to see how they live. (secretly i feel like Captain Cook travelling to some island in the middle of nowhere to study the local population and record my findings - i bring civilization !! - to any stewart islanders that might read this, im kidding).

To mum and the family, please say our goodbyes to granny jo for us, sorry we cant be there.

Matthew

--

its going to get worse before it gets better

finally i have time to update you guys on the latest.

Saturday was a pretty rough day. We ended up shredding the leech of the mainsail and putting a hole in our number 1 head sail as well as sheering off our self tacking gear on the staysail. we spent saturday night with the trysail and a jury rigged stay sail. about 4 this morning the wind died and i woke dad up and we started repairing sails. we then spent 12 solid hours sowing sails, and only realised afterwards that we had forgotten to have breakfast or lunch.

So thats the exciting news, since then we have had scrambled eggs and bacon and pancakes, and now we are just trying to catch up on sleep.

we are about 4 days off Stewart Island, it is taking much longer than we thought although the weather hasnt been exactly helpful.

i never realised how big the south island was. oh interesting little side note, we ate dinner tonight looking at the snow covered tips of the southern alps, it looks beautiful. it was a hot day but the temperature plummets at night.

Sad news to hear that Granny Jo passed away on saturday, she was a much loved mother and grandmother. We love you. Every time we make crunchies it will remind us of you.

Matthew

P.S. Dear room 11, to all the boys that like the idea of not having a bath for a week, let me tell you i am starting to smell, it turns out that not washing is possibly one of the worst ideas i have ever had. i hear you guys are learning about sailing and boats, keep it up. New Zealand is surrounded by water and it wouldnt surprise me if we had more boats per capita than anywhere else in the world.
--

letter home

Hi all at home

Man do I miss you guys. This South Island is big. We are about 50 km offshore and can see Mount Cooke - all covered in snow - just amaising - what a sight.

We have had quite a busy few days what with a torn main sail and no one. We have been limping along with our trysail and staysail. Our stay sail car blew appart and I will ask you to contact Lou West from Garhauer marine - they are based in Pahia - and has couried quite a bit for me. His phone number is 09 4026231 or 021 311666. What I need is a car for my ronstan 32mm track - that runs my stay sail - a grunty one but a single car. not the double that they have for the main sheets. Garhauer is usually much stronger all round than ronstan - I have phoned him before and described our vessel.

Matt and I have been working on fixing the sails ever since the wind died down at 5 am this morning - it took us nearly 11 hours but we have managed it. Hopefully it will last but we will take the main down in anything over 25kts - I think we have seen the end of this sail its really past use - should have replaced prior to setting off.

Whats with the weather - I new that southern ocean sailing was tough but this is diabolical gale followed by nothing then a new gale and so much southerly wind - where all the westerlies everyone tells me about. - unfortunately we are not in cell phone range - and i will have to wait till Matt gets up - he is for all intents and purposes unconcerns - its been such a long day for him as it was at the end of his watch that we started work. He had nothing all day and as soon as we put the main up we got the spinnaker up and the last of the wind disappeared and we go no where. Matt has cooked a lovely omelet - i couldn't eat any more then he still went on to make himself pancakes and then keeled over.

Our boat still leaks and we are quite gutted about it but i will continue to sort this out as its just going to make me crazy,

my fingers are so sore from 11 hours of stitching I can barely type. Sunstone is also in this wind hole - we have to be on our game if we think we can catch up but i am hoping too. No wind means that i have to run the engine to charge the batteries - really weired stuff as here we are with sails up going nowhere and i am running an engine in neutral - need my head read. The should let you use engines in this ocean racing stuff.

Love to all.

Dad
--

--

*insert day number here*

well i think its about time i braved the storm long enough to post something.

ill keep it to the facts. if i wanted to write fiction i would have become a weather man.

over the past two days we have had swells big enough to swollow a two story builing, and winds peaking around 40 knots.

last night we were running with just the staysail and a triple reefed main beating to windward. fortunatly the winds have dropped to 20 knots (which by comparison to the other weather we have had is quite nice.

Last nights dinner consisted of chicken out of a can, the night before that we had chille con carnie with dorritoes as i really couldnt be bothered cooking rice. Mum i dont think we are going to starve, we have barely put a dent in the food stores we have, i dont think we have even touched the two loaves of bread.

loving the comments coming through guys, keep them up!!

as far as the rest of the fleet goes im sure you guys have a better idea than we do. to the best of my knowledge 1 boat has pulled out due to injury and several boats have sought shelter at Golden Bay, just west of Nelson.

Only four more days till Stewart Island, i cant wait to get off onto dry land.

i am wearing the same clothes since monday, it feels amazing, i dont even bother taking my wet weather gear off anymore. so i am cold, damp and am surviving on nutri grain, lollies and fruitcake (which is delicious by the way)

hopefully you wont have to wait so long for the next update.

Matthew
--

Day 6

Hi all,

Managed to listen in to the daily Radio Sched at 7:33pm. Here is what we managed to glean from a very noisy band:

Charles and Matt are fine, and continuing on course. :)

As I started typing this up, the SSANZ posted their transcript of the radio sched, which can be found here  http://www.ssanz.co.nz/news.html?id=335

It seems the only boats currently ahead of Vingilot are Surreal and Revs! (Ignore the leader board on yellowbrick as a third of the boats trackers are no longer working!)

We're really proud of our men! The weather looks nasty, and its only going to get worse, so with a large portion of the race ducking for cover, we're really grateful for Vingilot's "Ship-Like" nature!

Hoping they keep safe and can get some news out to us,

Josh