Foul Weather
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Sat 25 Apr 2009 05:14
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Hi Folks,
Yes its caught up with us at last, wind 30 to 50
knts and lashing rain, as autumn is now with us the weather patterns are
changing, lots of yachts in the anchorage, knawing at the start ribbon to escape
to warmer climbs, it seems our European cousins, especially the Germans are the
keenest to escape, but with the weather fronts rushing across the Tasman sea I
wouldn't be to keen to poke my nose out yet, unless you can outrun the fronts
passing through , it gives you roughly two to three days to get 600 nm north to
get away from the fronts that sweep across from Australia and to get the wind
behind you to push you north to Tonga or Fiji, the ideal boat would be an open
sixty, but the average cruising boat being forty to 45 ft in length they
haven't a snowballs chance in hell of getting clear, and don't worry its not
just the northern hemisphere boat rallies ( ARC) that do stupid things, last
year the Island Cruising club did exactly that, set of on a pre determined date
and ran strait into a storm, its the norm here that when the low passes over you
start off and go like the clappers to get north asap, with average boat speeds
of 5 to 6 knots you don't get that far in three days ! the bigger ones of course
pile on either with engine or sail and as long as they can keep up 7 knts plus
they get clear in the allotted window and up into the warm tropics, that's ok as
long as no last minute cyclones are lurking, the official end of that season is
May so everybody's hedging there bets either way !
For us land lubbers this weather means no external
work, being lashed with rain and wind, wobbling about between the confines of
the boat cradle which is a huge advancement on our last haul out a universal
yard, being balanced on sticks here would mean that if the gusts didn't get you
the deluge of water run off would wash the soil from under your supports and you
would flop over like a landed whale to one side, luckily the large metal cradle
allows us the wobble but not collapse, its a bit of a lake outside at the
moment, we have had 30mm or 11/4" of rain per hr for the past 24 hrs that's the
equivalent of 700mm or 281/2" which is not uncommon in these parts ( sub
tropical) regions , we sit at 35 deg south that's about level with Tanager's in
Morocco, Wellington on the other hand is about the equivalent of Porto in
Portugal were as Invercargill at the bottom of the South Island is level with La
Rochelle in France , but there a hell of a tem difference, they have the warm
gulf stream were as they have the good old South pole .
Enough of the geography lesson , now to local
politics, the eco doom mongers have slowly been whooping it up down here
although the government has introduced a 9 day working fortnight with the tenth
day being paid for by the government, in factories over 50 employees, meanwhile
they have been sheding loads of jobs from government departments , like
education,inland revenue ect, but don't forget we only have the population of an
average county in England barely four million .
Things in Fiji aren't as bad either as the
international press would have you believe, people are still holidaying up there
from Aus and NZ and a good proportion of yachts will be calling in as well, word
has it from yachties that spend the cyclone season there that it buis as usual
and all the press news is attention seeking and sabre rattling, the Kiwi and
Ausis are mumbling about military action but that's a bit of a joke as Fiji has
spent the last 1/4 of a century earning most of its forgian currency from peace
keeping duties for the UN, and every islander has to do his national
conscription plus there armed to the teeth, on the other hand the Kiwis and the
Ausis haven't seen action since Vietnam, the Kiwi army is a joke as they have no
major external threat, they have no tanks and were considering selling off all
there armoured cars, and as some friend of us say here it would be a fools
errand to even attempt a stunt like that,we have one assault ship which is a
converted car ferry plus a couple of small frigates with pop guns on
the front, still look at some of the messes politicians have got us into in
the past who knows what next, I can only liken it to Hampshire declaring
war on say the Isle of Wight , that's about the scale of it , Oh yes there's the
matter of 1200 nm to get there to consider , and I would be dunging in my undies
at the thought a a six foot something Fijian rugby player as a reception
committee .
Well that enough from me for now
From the windy Northlands of NZ
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