Day 8 NZ to Oz - arrival in Sydney Position: S33:51:66 E151:13:13

Superted V
Jean & Matt Findlay
Tue 28 Oct 2014 00:32

G’day Sydney,

 

Yep we’re here – after a reasonable sail all day yesterday but with the threat of strong winds starting in the evening.  Matt had studied the gribs and worked out that we needed to be well west and south of the rhumb line to avoid a dead beat in the worst of the weather to come.  We were well ahead of schedule to arrive in Sydney and didn’t want to arrive too early (Sydney is 2 hours behind NZ time – GMT +11) so we only needed to do around 5 knots for the last few hours.  We had an early dinner, reefed down the sails and waited for the winds to kick in and waited… and waited.  With little wind we were being pushed further south by the current and were going nowhere in the little wind we did have with such a small amount of sail up.  At around 9pm there was no sign of any movement in the sky, and no wind so we were just thinking about taking the reefs out when wham bam…it didn’t quite do 0 to 40 in 15 seconds but it certainly came in quickly – before we knew it the wind switched from North to West and we had 40+ knots true.  We were in the worst of it for around 4 hours as it gradually turned to the south – banging and clattering – and trying to keep the speed down.  At around 1am it started to calm down a bit until we had around 20+ knots and lumpy seas but were going around 5 knots so that was good.  The last few hours were very lumpy with hardly any wind and we finally got in to Sydney harbour just before dawn around 8am (6am local).  We were told to go and anchor in Farm Cove – right next door to Sydney Opera House (how cool is that) and wait for a call from customs.  It’s now just about lunch time and we’ve just finished with customs, immigration and quarantine – all extremely polite and efficient – no hassle whatsoever.  The only reason we are here so long is that we’ve been using their water to hose down the boat and fill water tanks!  So we’re now off to find an anchorage somewhere and get sorted.

 

Passage time: 7 days, 22 hours

Passage length:  1301 miles

Average speed: 6.84 knots

Engine running time: 32 hours