GeeWiz it's Gale.........

Stormy news;

NOON 30 JULY NZT. 35S23 163E16. HOVE TO 0200 IN 40 KN GALE WIND. STILL WAITING FOR GALE TO PASS. NOON-NOON: 71 NM.

The halfway to NZ sms......

Here it is;

NOON 29 JULY NZT. PASSED POINT OF NO RETURN--NOW MORE THAN HALF WAY TO NZ. NOON-NOON: 114 NM (22 HR ONLY).

Life is a breeze..............

Sailing can be fun !

Today's sms;
ENJOYING GOOD WEATHER AND CALM WATER. SPEED 4 KN WITH 8-10 KN WIND. NOON-NOON: 104 NM.

Showing "hose" boss.................

Well,

the team are getting a good soaking. Mother nature (the ultimate boss) has decided to turn on the water and wind.

Here is today's sms (Saturday 26th July 2008);
NOON 26 JULY EST. 36S27 155E05. MANY SQUALLS. DOING 6.5 KN WITH 2nd REEF & SMALL JIB. NOON-NOON = 129 NM.

If you want, please checkout their current location at this website, i.e. as the green marker
http://tinyurl.com/5amurc

I thought it would be a good idea to see what it would be like (on a small boat)
in a squall, so put on your lifejacket and head to this website; http://tinyurl.com/6futce
The above video is not from Pachuca and requires a good internet connection.

Goodbye Meat-pie.....

Farewell Australia !


Here is today's sms;
24 JULY EST. 37S06 150E07. EAST OF EDEN. WE DEPARTED EDEN 0910 FOR NEW ZEALAND. SAILING 5 KN WITH CLEAR SKY & CALM SEA. GOODBYE AUS.

One More Day in Eden

We decided to stay in Eden one more night. My head is still full of cold and Arnold was still throwing up into the early afternoon.

I visited my friends at Customs and got their OK to depart tomorrow (Thursday) morning. I then visited John at the harbour master's office and told him our plans and paid up for the last two nights at the jetty ($10 total!). John told me about the boat that had sunk during the recent blow. It is owned by a doctor who isn't very good at boat maintenance. It is a dive boat with two engines and large cockpit open to the weather. Water started lapping over the side into the boat but because the automatic bilge pump was not working the boat eventually heeled to one side and half sunk. John says that one engine is ruined but there is some hope that the other one can be rebuilt. Our boating friend must be a slow learner because this is the third time that the boat has sunk. I wonder what the insurance company will think. While I was there I mentioned to John that I planned to get nylon mooring lines because they stretch and put less load on the deck fittings. He told me that I could get that done by the net maker up the road.

On the way back to the boat I got into a conversation with the skipper of Kingfisher, the fishing boat ahead of me. I mentioned the 50 kn winds and he said that they were more like 70 kn winds given the effects that they had on the town. Arnold had seen the first squall coming and he said that it looked like a fog bank racing across the bay. When the wind hit Pachuca the B&G wind indicator reported 50 kn, which is the limit of what it can report. Arnold wasn't sure whether the instrument had pegged out at 50 kn and the actual speed was higher. Having said that, we know that we got a lot of protection from both the jetty and the boats upwind of us, particularly the fishing boat Kingfisher directly ahead of us. We were pointing SW with the jetty on our starboard side and as luck would have it, the bulk of the wind was coming from about 10 degrees off our starboard bow, yielding maximum protection to us from the jetty and the boats. Without that little bit of assistance the night would probably ended in disaster. The man also expressed surprise that my midships bollard had not been ripped out, which was precisely one of my big fears of the night. I fitted the cleats with four s/s bolts, each with three flat washers between the underside of the deck and the nuts: one very large one, one smaller one, and one smaller yet. The idea was to spread the load across as much area as possible. However, I never expected these cleats to take the load placed on them during the blow. I credit the survival of the cleat to the thickness of the fiberglass deck. These older boats are built like tanks. One explanation given to me is that in the early 80's builders were not sure how strong fiberglass was, so they built solid.

At 4 PM Arnold, Brenda, and I picked up Pachuca's new mooring lines. All lines are of 20mm nylon – nylon because it stretches and therefore reduces the shock load on the deck fittings. The forward and aft mooring lines are 8 meters long with a loop at each end. The springers are 12 meters long with a loop at one end. We tried them out and they work OK. We plan to get heavier and thicker barge boards in NZ.

Pachuca is steadily being transformed into a battle-hardened cruiser.

It is evening now and Arnold is on the mend. I brought him back an ice cream cone and he wolfed it down – and held it down, in contrast to the instant noodles that he had tried an hour earlier that ended up over the side. He enjoyed it so much that he got out of his bunk and went to the cafe and had two more double cones. He's now returning to his normal self. ... Who needs a doctor when 5 scoops of Macademia nut ice cream will cure the ailment.

So once more our water tanks are full, the batteries are charged, and we are prepared to sail early in the morning.

Attached are photos of Peter's Tasmanian-made cray boat that he is beautifully restoring. There are also photos of the unfortunate dive boat.

Cove is Snug Again

Snug Cove has reverted to her namesake after two days of being Chaos Cove which I'm told occurs two or three times per year. Arnold was told that at 10 AM Melbourne got the wind all clear and that we would be six hours behind. The wind died down steadily in a roller coaster fashion but by evening the wind had settled to 15-20 kn and the water surge diminished. This morning the wind is blowing at 5-10 kn from the South.

Last night the head cold that I had been battling seemed to get worse and I took to the bunk at 9 PM with a headache and two panadols. Arnold had been expressing symptoms of the same cold and this morning he has vomited at least three times. I guess that this is all a manifestation of nature's survival mechanism: once the danger is over the health debt is paid.

Anyway, we cannot complain. Neither Arnold nor I received any serious injury, though there was great risk of accidents such as getting a finger or arm caught in a tightening rope or slipping into the water between the boat and the jetty during the frenetic nocturnal activities.

Pachuca is OK too. From the jetty I can see no damage to her exposed tumble home hull, other then some superficial marking from the fenders and tyres that a little polish should take care of.

If Arnold is up to it we will leave today for the comparative safety of the Tasman Sea in winter just after lunch, after we have topped up the water tanks, returned fenders, tyres, and boards that were loaned to us, and thanked our benefactors wherever possible.

We hope to make the passage in under two weeks, though it may take longer to reach an Internet facility for sending an account of our passage.