Sail Summary

Opua-Raivavae Sail Summary

This is a summary of the sail from Opua, NZ to Raivavae, Fr Polynesia.

For those interested, I recorded details of the trip on almost a daily basis while events were still fresh in our minds. The first detail account, “Leg 1” was successfully sent out as email via the satellite telephone. Thereafter we were unable to successfully send out “Leg 2” even though the Yahoo browser reported that the mail had been successfully sent. So expect reports on legs 2, 3, and 4 in the next few days.

Highlights:

 The crossing of 2100 nm took 26 days (622 hours to be exact).
 This represented an average speed of 3.38 knots.
 The first 5 days of the sail were slow because we were under the influence of a high pressure weather system.
 The 7 days of 7-14 October were very difficult with light winds and three consecutive days of beating into a northerly wind.
 The log records that we lay ahull 7 times for a total of 51.5 hours (2.1 days). (Note that each ahull event implies a presage of sometimes many hours of feeble winds before we give up the sail.)
 The charts show favorable currents for most of the way to Raivavae, turning to an adverse current as we approached the island. This conformed to our experience. We detected an adverse current of about 1 knot for 2 or 3 days.
 Our supplies held up well. Even though we failed with our water maker we collected 100 liters of rain water. We had good meals throughout the journey, with fresh fruit and vegetables well into our third week. After our supply of bread was exhausted we were treated to fresh baked bread every day.
 We had one near knockdown from a line squall associated with a cold front.
 We saw two whales.
 After clearing the NZ coastal shipping late we encountered only one ship in our crossing, a container ship out of Balboa, Panama, bound for Auckland.
 Our engine overheated and stopped due to a salt water intake hose coming loose from the raw water filter. This resulted in a cascade of water descending into the boat for a short time.
 We discovered a water leak from the engine exhaust system, which accounts for some of the bilge water that we have been detecting.
 The boat was relatively dry. The new forward hatch has been very successful. Water intake from the bow was little more than a nuisance. The vent over the galley sprung a leak which was eliminated by removing, cleaning, and re bedding with Sikaflex.
 Our new battery and charging system worked well. We ran the engine a total of 23 hours to keep the voltage up.