Gisborne - Gearbox!

The Adventures of the Good Ship Equinox
Cate and Chris Galloway
Sun 2 Jan 2011 05:45
Position at 1600 NZDT - Gisborne Harbour 38.40.225S 178.01.804E

Well,

What a day... Overnight, for 12 hours sailed, 34nm made good, bashing into a southerly, but no less comfortable than hanging around the pick in Hicks Bay!

We had a rollercoaster ride from about 0900 this morning with a building nor 'east breeze - top speed 10.9 knots over ground! We made twice as much distance in the last 6 hours as we did in the first 18....

Coming into Gisborne, started engine, boat stops sailing. Tried putting boat into gear and applying throttle, boat goes backwards quite quickly with ahead selected.... Scratch head...say words that don't need to be repeated....

Just then Trevor from the marina rings to tell us we have gone into the wrong berth. Given that we were still outside the harbour with a mechanical problem, now feeling a bit hard done by... turns out another blue boat is in the wrong berth. At Trevor's suggestion we lassoo a passing charter boat who quite calmly and skillfully delivers us where we were supposed to be. After some pulling, pushing but no engine, we get into the berth. Up to game fishing club (sadly, 47 paces from boat) to buy Trevor the harbourmaster a beer for his help. We are then regaled with stories about Trevor and his defacto, who he hasn't seen since New Year's Eve and is still reputed to be partying somewhere... Given that we may be here for sometime, I think we are going to like Gisborne - the middle of town is 100m away, and everything is at our fingertips! The quality of the welcome is the best we have experienced in NZ so far.

More to follow on the gearbox saga tomorrow -Kev: any pointers?