New sails and update  Wednesday, 25/04/2024

I haven’t posted for two weeks, largely because I haven’t had anything much to say. 

We moved on Monday last week from Marsden Cove marina back to Riverside Drive marina in town. It’s better being here: proximity to shops and also to the forest stretching up over the hills opposite. 

The new sails were fitted on the Sunday before we left. They look good – and hopefully they will stand up well to the next two years of sailing. They are pictured below. 

I’m basically waiting on work to be done. As I write this, I have the Undercover Canvas guy Ronnie doing final adjustments to the new sprayhood he is making. It’s taken quite a while to get to this point, but that doesn’t really matter, given that I’m waiting on other stuff anyway. Gradually everything is coming together, which hopefully will mean that I am able to depart New Zealand by late May. 

With this in mind I’ve been looking at my potential routes. The best time for sailing through the Torres Strait (which separates Australia from Papúa New Guinea) is June to September, and is also the best time for sailing across the Indian Ocean. That means that those four months are going to be a time of heavy sailing, probably taking us all the way to the Seychelles. From there, heading south, the best time is October. So broadly speaking, will aim to reach Durban in South Africa by late October, or perhaps by mid-November, which should be alright. That’s a long way, roughly 10,000 nautical miles (11,500 land miles or 18,400 kilometres). Which is a bit more than the 9,000 nautical miles or so we did last year sailing from Central America to New Zealand, but not that much more: I know that it’s perfectly doable. And there are islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean: Christmas Island, the Cocos/Keeling islands and the Chagos archipelago. That means that the longest non-stop voyage shouldn’t be much more than 1,500 nautical miles, roughly 11 or 12 days assuming that the wind is reasonable. Nothing like the 28 days it took from Costa Rica to the Marquesas last year. Of course it’s quite a daunting prospect, but I’ve found that once underway a rhythm builds, making it easier than it seems before setting out.

It’s getting colder here… today there’s been a lot of sunshine, but the maximum temperature is only 20 degrees. Last night the minimum was a quite chilly 8 degrees due to clear skies (when it’s cloudy it’s a few degrees warmer). By the time we leave New Zealand it’s likely to be rather colder. It will be strange to get back into the tropics again, where it’s always warm…