All good things have to come to an end (dunno why, but that is wot my Mum said)

Serendipity
David Caukill
Wed 11 Jul 2012 04:55

Wednesday 11 July:  Port Resolution, Tanna, Vanuatu South Pacific Ocean 19 31.5S  169 31.6E  

Today’s Blog by David (Time zone UTC +11.00;  BST+10.00)

 

Our final leg with the WorldARC is complete; a boisterous sail in a strong SE blow which ranged between 15-30 knots.  We would have averaged 215-220 miles per day had we not had (another) gear failure: a hydraulic pipe on the vang burst which severely curtailed our ability to trim the  main sail. That was – in itself not really going to slow us down, but we did have to slow down when we found the boom was close to falling off!

 

 

Whether this was caused by the vang failure or was going to happen independently is not clear. Either way however, there was no way we were going to fix that at sea.

 

We strapped the boom down, having taken in the mainsail and ran on under our headsails alone.  This slowed us down considerably – and allowed the yachts behind to catch us up. Now, while this World ARC is NOT A RACE, we did have a small wager on this leg with the crew of Ruby and watched them gradually overhauling us…. but not fast enough, (ahaa !),  and we finished ahead of them.  Désolé,  messieurs!

 

These equipment failures are a bore. We had planned to sail on up to Port Vila and leave the WorldARC after the Prize Giving there but common sense tells me that is not a sensible option.  From Port Vila to Noumea is 350 miles almost directly upwind, forecast in the 25 knot range.  It is only about 220 miles from here  and it will be a fetch – a much easier sail at 50-60 degrees apparent wind. With a dicky boat and boom the easier the better  …. So World ARC once you leave Port Resolution on Friday  - - Farewell.

 

It is with mixed feelings that we leave.   I have to say that the pace of the Pacific transit gave little chance to really appreciate the places we have been. It is no wonder that people stay for several years in the Pacific. Only really in Fiji did we have a chance to get to grips with the environs (we were there nearly a month) and all that did was make us want to go back next year! 

 

So that is our plan. To New Caledonia, then cruising New Zealand this Christmas and early next year (hopefully with Sapphire and other World ARC dropouts) then next April back up to Tonga, then Fiji and especially Vanuatu given that we have had to cut this visit short. After that……….who knows.

 

There are many things I will miss about the WorldARC.  One abiding memory will be the T/T Anastasia careering around each anchorage at Mach2,

 

 

the crew with a manic glow in their eyes:

 

 

 

Another will be the guys who manage this process: they wear yellow polo shirts and respond to the call sign:  “Rally Control, Rally Control”.   Theirs is a thankless task.  We, the customer, have no idea what local hoops they need to jump through in order to make the process as smooth as possible for us – that’s what we pay for.  They do their best and they have had to “make it up” a couple of times on the rally so far, with varying degrees of success, particularly when the fleet got separated by some bad weather.

 

 

It is easy to criticise and complain – why,  even I have done so (yup, even Mr Nice Guy!) -  and I suspect that is all the feedback they ever hear. If it is constructive, then they deserve it and I hope will learn from it to improve the experience of future Rally Participants.  However, it I forget to say it to their faces – and I am likely to – they do deserve warm thanks – and a round of applause from all participants -  for what they do achieve. I will only know how much I miss them when they are gone.

  

So to Noumea, New Caledonia where we will put the boat to bed and then fly home to the UK for a couple of months.  We have couple more blogs to write but at the end of July the Blog will go quiet until mid-October when we will be cruising New Caledonia.  

 

Finally a practical point.  Sooner or later the WorldARC are going to close their blog facility to Serendipity and our blogs will no longer be available there.  If you have been following us on the World Cruising site and you want to continue to follow our progress (even if it is in the hope that we one day will be ship wrecked!) you will need to change channels. Henceforth:

 

www.blog.mailasail.com/serendipity

 

is the place to be!

 

And to find out where we are right now:

 

http://live.adventuretracking.com/serendipity