The Journey South
NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Wed 27 Oct 2004 07:16
Our Voyage South to New
Zealand
Opua New Zealand.
27th October 2004
Well it is really best if I do not dwell on this
passage, little of it was pleasant. We left Port Vila in grey warm weather
with a promised forecast of twenty knots out of the ESE. As we cleared the
protection of the land the reality was more like twenty five knots from the
SE. Only a little difference in forecasters terms but a whole
different world as far as we were concerned. We had cast off at 0900hrs on
the 15th October and there were no entries in the log book until 2120hrs the
same day. This said Wind down to 20-25 true after a spell of 35, stars
out for the first time. The reason for this lack of writing was that
both Annette and I were feeling rather under the weather as Nordlys, sheets hard
in, threw herself south by west into a very lumpy sea. This continued
until dawn after our second night at sea when with Walpole Island just to the
East of us the wind eased and we actually reduced to one reef and then by 0700
we were motoring. At this stage we had been forced well to the west of our
desired track, Walpole Island being the southernmost and an uninhabited New
Caledonian Island.
The motoring did not last long but the rising wind
was exactly from the direction we wanted to go, it had also become and continued
to be amazingly cold. On we plugged in a direction that was west of south
for a lot of the time. Our desired course was just south of South
East. I will not go on. Suffice to say that for the next four days
we banged away with the wind rarely ever allowing us to lay the course and our
progress also being slowed by a knot and a half of current from the SSE. This
slowed our ground speed and pushed us further west at the same time. One
evening we were so fed up and tired with the motion combined with the lack of
either progress or a likely change in the wind that we hove too for four hours
and slept while Nordlys looked after the show herself, quietly (a relative term)
bobbing along at one knot. The reality was that on Monday we knew that
there would be little change until at least Thursday and probably Friday.
When one is going hard to windward this is not always easy news to take
philosophically. At least not for softies like ourselves. Neither of
us pretend to be out of the SBS type mould. Reality won and on Thursday
evening things got better, the wind went East and down to a pleasant fifteen
knots. We could point to our destination which by now had slipped from a
bearing of 152 degrees to 124 degrees. The next thirty hours were a
pleasure and the previous struggle began to recede into the back of our
memories. Saturday morning, exactly eight days to the hour after leaving
we tied up to the customs dock in Opua. We had logged 1257nm to achieve
1090. One plus point was that we were never threatened with a severe gale
nor did the we ever have rain or after the first two days any real
amount of cloud.
I must at this stage say a bit about
'Noodles'. She had taken all this in her stride and at one stage she went
for over thirty hours with the helm lashed. She does in fact sail faster
for some reason with the helm thus, rather than using the monitor wind
vane. This despite the wind strength shuttling between 20 and 28 knots
true and changing in direction by some 20 degrees. We had few
leaks and those we had were due to worn rubber around hatches. There were
few squeaks and groans from the woodwork down below and I have yet to see so
much as a crack in the paint around any bulkhead to hull join. This after
a week of going at 6 to seven knots to windward into foul seas. I
reiterate my view that when it comes to producing boats with good all-round
sailing characteristics Olin Stephens and Nautor are in a class
of their own. The grand old man of design is of course still alive,
in his nineties now. As she grows gracefully older, Nordlys is now over
twenty four years young, Nautor's build quality becomes very
apparent. We thus forgive her the small rather antisocial cockpit and her
other non cruising design points.
New Zealand is living up to its memories of
last year and within a few hours of clearing the formalities we were whisked
away by kind friends to spend a few days resting in their 'bach' or holiday
home on a beach a few miles east of here. Now back on board we are
immersed in tasks both boat and admin in origin. In a few days we
will sail down to Auckland where we have things to do before picking up Annalise
Hamilton who is coming with us for a short cruise to the Coromandel Peninsular
and hopefully out to Great Barrier Island. Then about mid December we will
head back to the Bay of Islands and prepare for the arrival of Nick, Jenny and
grandson George on the 24th December. Christmas to New Year is planned off
the aforementioned 'bach'.
On the assumption that most of our readers are in
the Northern Hemisphere we wish you all a happy and hopefully not too severe
winter. We will enjoy the lengthening days and the New Zealand
summer. Not to mention the lovely fresh green colour of the
countryside. Okay I really will stop now.
As always, happy times,
David and
Annette