Chapter 175: Wild, Wooly, and Wet

We Made It! That’s the headline. I’m writing this on Wednesday, October 22nd (otherwise known as Tuesday, October 21st for those in the Western Hemisphere). We pulled into Marsden Cove Marina near Whangarei in New Zealand this morning at 7:15. It capped a 1,130 nautical mile, 6 day and 17 hour passage from Fiji that was, well, an adventure.

It was, in the annals of Fiji-to-NZ passages, pretty mild. This stretch of ocean can be unforgiving, with storms and low pressure systems appearing suddenly causing high winds and large waves. We mostly avoided that, fortunately. Still, this was some of the most challenging sailing Kim and I have done. God’s been kind to us so far. We’ve experienced no storms and really, no winds above about 20 knots in our travels so far. He knew, I think, how inexperienced we were. Evidently we’ve learned and He decided it was time to level us up.

We pulled out of Fiji around 10 AM. Within an hour, we had a problem. Our steering cable was loose and clanking around inside the steering pedestal in the cockpit. Not a huge problem as long as we fixed it. Left loose, the cable could come off the sprocket and we would lose steering. That would be…unfortunate. But not a huge problem. Except the steering cable tensioners are in the aft lazarette compartment, which is filled with stuff. So, we had to completely empty the compartment, and the floorboards. Then I had to tighten the cable, while underway at sea while Kim kept an eye out so we didn’t hit anything, like another boat. Because we can’t steer and tighten cables at the same time. It was an adventure. But a successful one! Cable tightened. On we went.

The first section of the trip was upwind. Sailing upwind isn’t the easiest because one is heading into the waves and the apparent wind is higher. Day One, when the wind was in the upper teens was manageable. Day Two, however… It started off fine. But around noon the wind picked up and for the next 12 hours we experienced winds of 25-30 knots and seas of 2 meters (for reference, that’s about 6.5 feet-doesn’t sound like a lot, but that means the distance from the trough to the peak of a wave is 13 feet). We were reefed down and still heeled over to one side. And we were taking a lot of water over the deck of the boat. And over the cabin of the boat. And over the bimini of the boat. And sometimes, just to be extra special, an errant wave would sent several gallons of water INTO the cockpit. That was special. We were very wet. And the inside of the boat was very wet as well. We discovered 3 portlights and 1 hatch that leak. Water inside the boat. Sweet. Then I discovered that the shower pan was full of water-seawater. What the heck??? I’m still not sure, but my hypothesis is that we were taking so much water into the bilge through the hawse hole for the anchor chain that some was collecting under the shower pan and coming up through the drain. This SHOULD not be possible because the drain is hooked to a drain hose. But Meraviglia’s an old boat, so… We also got water into the boat through the toerails and stanchion bases. We can’t fix that without disassembling the entire interior of the boat, so we’ll just be living with that one. Oh, and we soaked our cabin because we accidentally left a portlight open. I had just drifted off to sleep on the second night when I heard a waterfall inside the boat-that’s never good. Fortunately, closing the porthole magically stopped the water! A miracle!

Happily, the high winds and rain only lasted about 12 hours and then calmed down. Whew.

After that, the winds stayed in the upper teens for a couple of days. Unfortunately, it was at this point that the furling line for the genoa chafed through. We had the genoa reefed down due to the winds and we heard a “boom!” Couldn’t figure out what it was because it was dark. The next morning we discovered the genoa fully deployed. Whoops. Happily we managed to jury rig something and use the windlass to reef the genoa. I say happily. That happiness was short-lived. The strain on the windlass caused the foredeck to crack. That’s a problem. To be fair, I had noticed excessive flex in the foredeck for a while and my plan was to reinforce it once we reached New Zealand. I will be doing that. Definitely.

Winds actually lightened during Days Four and Five. We had to motor intermittently at times. And we were approaching New Zealand!!! The wind off the coast of New Zealand though… The last 12 hours were another roller coaster-literally. We were sailing downwind and the seas started to pick up and we were rolling a lot while climbing. Up and down, up and down. The winds were in the low 20s. And there was New Zealand looming to leeward. We could see lights! Sailing along a strange coast is always stressful. Yes, we have charts. And the charts for New Zealand are great. But still…

Anyway, the sun came up, revealing New Zealand in all of its Middle Earth-like glory. We had made it!

And that’s it. We pulled into the marina at about 7:15 AM to clear customs and the passage was over! We’re really excited to explore. The landscapes are beautiful and the people so friendly. And, of course, we need to fix stuff. We’ve got a leaky hatch, three leaky portlights, a broken furling line, a tear in our headsail, a cracked foredeck, a leaky shower pan….. Old boat problems. As usual.

But… We’re here! We sailed to New Zealand. From the United States. That seems…significant. Let the hobbit hunt commence!