position S22 16.600 E166 26.400
Ocean Rival Journey Log
Adam Power Diana Power
Mon 20 May 2019 09:19
We had a relatively gentle trip back to Numea 1st thing with much lighter wind. Back in the marina hoping for positive news about the forestay, but Giles had no news for us and depsite promising to find out and report back hadn't done so by tea time and his secretary couldn't provide any more information when we payed another visit to the office. The office is a shed beside the harbour 5mins from the boat dock so we can hassle Giles and his secretary on a regular basis.
We bumped into a couple of yachties that we had met in Opua. One had an easy trip up and got here in 5 days (he must have a much bigger boat than us) -the other was the american who ran the radio net in Opua and he had a difficult trip losing his prop shaft and breaking the boom. Apparently the yard in Opua didn't do the bolts up correctly and the crew that he picked up New Zealand insisted on too much canvas, hence the broken boom. He had to be towed in to harbour as he couldn't tack in with no engine. He is now tied up aganst a wall near the boatyard trying to make parts with oversized bolts and sandpaper. He said most of the boats coming from New Zealand had some sort of damage which made us feel better. Minerva reef is apparently chock full of boats waiting out the bad weather on route to Tonga. There was even talk of the depression turning into an out of season cyclone, although that sounds like chinese wispers to me.