Arrival OPUA New Zealand

Spindrift
David Hersey
Fri 24 Oct 2008 17:29

35:18.810 S  174:07.315E

23/10/08 16:00

 

We’ve been doing 10 knots quite a lot the last couple of hours.  SPRINDRIFT definitely wants to go to New Zealand. Last week the fridge was defrosted and almost didn’t restart, but after a few hours it was okay.  Yesterday Steve discovered the freezer wiring connection had rotted and it wasn’t working.  He made a temporary repair but it doesn’t want to play.   We have very little food left in at as everything will have to be junked when we arrive tomorrow. It will have to be rewired with the proper tinned copper I bought in New York.

 

 The list of items to attend to is getting quite serious.  The water maker has also gone moody and only makes water sometimes.  It keeps thinking the salinity is no good when in fact it’s fine so we have to run it in emergency mode bypassing most of the complicated stuff.  The ice maker is also on strike. One generator is down and the other limping along. 

 

We just touched 10.9 knots.  I could get used to this broad reaching point of sail.

 

24/10/08 03:00

Broken cloud. Some stars.  The diminishing moon has just peeked through the clouds. The wind has held NNE Force 5/6 on the beam and we’re still doing 8/9 knots with a small reef in the Yankee.  We passed EASY BREEZE (I got their name wrong  yesterday) about five hours ago---they had  more than a 12 hour head start---and were shortening sail to slow down as  the cat found these conditions a bit bouncy.   The barometer is dropping but we should be in before the low hits hard.

 

09:00

The Barometer has really fallen. The wind is holding at NNE Force 6. During my watch last night the pilot dropped out several times. Normally this is cured by turning it on and off which worked for a while but during Hamish’s watch it got worse.  Maybe there is a problem with the drive unit. Hamish is happily hand helming which admittedly is a rare occurrence on SPINDFIFT.  We’re lucky that this is happening in the last 30 miles and not at the beginning of a long crossing.

 

11:30

We arrived at the quarantine berth. It took about an hour for the agents to turn up and do their job.  We are now free of any fresh food.  It took another hour to manoeuvre the boat into a berth with very strong cross wind and an unhelpful tide running.  Hamish went ashore with the customs agents.  We got close enough so I could throw him a couple of lines so they could already be made off before we needed them.

It was hairy but we got in withut damaging anything.  Anyway were in safely after a very fast passage.   Our 23 ½ hour run was 210 miles.  Total distance from Norfolk
Island
497 miles. Average speed 8.12 knots.