Day 17 Mustang position 34°46.21 S 174°22.59E

Mark_needler
Professional Skipper
Thu 24 Feb 2011 04:03
16
00 NZT
 
It has been a very tiring night and the morning and afternoon so far havenât been too much better last nights low point was when a rouge wave hit the transom of the yacht and ripped the dinghy off the davits the guyâs and I did a grand job in what can only be described as horrible conditions and managed to get the dinghy and all back on the yacht with some ingenious ideas and team work.
 
What appears to have happened is the fixing secured to the bottom of the dinghy used generally to hoist it on board couldnât take the pressure of the water and was ripped out of the hull this meant that the whole thing fell into the water whilst we were travelling at 6 knots. Its all back in place now, not how it was but safe for now till we get into Opua.
 
Talking about getting into Opua given the southerly winds and the currents running down the east coast  we are again beating into the prevailing winds and not making any reasonable progress at all. in fact our VMG (velocity made good) is very rarely over 2.1knots so as you can imagine 28 nms to go seems like a small distance, which it is. Take into to account the VMG itâs 14hours of sailing and after the trip we have had itâs very frustrating in deed looking at the log now about an hour after the GPS position above we have only covered 2 nms which only leaves us 10 hours to the entrance and a further 9 nms after that to get see Customs who by the way still refuse to let anyone deliver any fuel to us so that we can start the engines and motor in......Wankers!