Category Archives: Ocean Passages

Posts about ocean passages with S.V. Sunny Spells. These can go on a bit, so have a glass of your favourite muscle relaxant close at hand…

Nouméa to Bundaberg

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Départ

As a consequence of a fortunate bureaucratic arrangement we were required to complete checkout formalities on Friday before 11AM if we wanted to leave on the weekend. We then had until early Monday to leave, giving us maximum flexibility. Checkout was tedious and took 3 hours, but every official we dealt with was friendly and helpful.

Back at the boat, we transferred 7 of 8 jerry cans of diesel into the tanks, leaving us with 400 litres in the tanks and a 20 litre “reserve of last resort” (7 hours motoring) in the remaining jerry can. We then cast off and motored into the 25 knot southerly and waves to Baie Saint Marie where we anchored to scrub the slime and algae off the hull.

All in all not an idyllic day of cruising.

This morning we weighed anchor around 8:45AM and were underway by 9, motoring south into wind and waves towards Ïlot Amadee and Passe Boulari.

We have 800 miles to go to Bundaberg with mostly moderate easterlies and a west setting current to take us there. We are heading for the channel through the sea mounds south of Chesterfield Reef, almost exactly at the halfway mark. We intend to transit this obstacle between the Argo Bank and the Kelso Bank, a channel about 18 miles wide between the 2000 meter countours. We will then curve northward to follow the currents and give us fair bit of northing to play with once the south setting Australian East Coast Current starts trying to sweep us down the coast. The screenshot of the ECMWF surface current forecast from Windy is shown below. It’s complicated…

With five to seven days between southerly changes in the Tasman Sea, we have our work cut out to make it into Bundaberg before the next southerly froths up that south-setting current. We hope to be inside the river by 2AM Friday morning.

We motored the first 4 hours into the fresh southerly breeze and waves, and it was slow going, making around 4 knots. Once outside the pass we turned west and set the small genoa and staysail on their poles for our preferred downwind sail plan.

The wind was fresh all day and through the night, gusting 30 knots. We only had about 30% of the genoa rolled out, yet we regularly saw the speed over the ground go up to the low 9 knots.

Day 1

It was gusting up to 25 knots at times in the early hours and the sea state was quite rolly, so we kept the reduced sail until it got light and the wind was a steady 10 to 15 knots. Shortly after the rest of the genoa was unfurled, the wind freshened a bit to around 15 to 18 knots average. The wind is pretty steady and the sea state much more comfortable than yesterday, so we are making a good pace (7.3 knots average in the last half hour) directly toward the waypoint south of Argo Bank.

The ECMWF weather model now shows a strong southerly change in our route area late Thursday, so we may well still get caught out at sea in the proverbial washing machine around Sandy Cape. The other models still forecast the associated low-pressure system to peter out well to the south of us without impacting our passage, so we prefer to believe those! Not much we can do other than keep the pace up in an effort to beat the weather. For the moment, conditions could not be better, and we are comfortably winning the race with our PredictWind routing.

In the meantime, our days are consumed with preparing for re-entry into Australia, an exercise that promises to be the most painful and costly check-in of our entire circumnavigation. We have now decided to engage a shipping agent to handle the re-importation of Sunny Spells into Australia as horror stories abound of people getting it wrong, and mistakes can be very costly. As Roy Steyn said to me 44 years ago when I fitted every single one of the Ford Capri’s crankshaft bearings the wrong way round: “ah yes, do it yourself Gerhard, it’s not a lot more expensive! Lesson learned, thanks Roy!

Monday

We cleared the southern end of the Argo Bank and were now heading NE to position ourselves for the crossing of the Australian East Coast Current on Wednesday.

We are now halfway to Bundaberg, still motoring in around 8 knots of SE wind on a pretty flat sea. The current petered out as we approached the sea mounds, so our SOG has dropped to about 6 knots average. We are now waiting for the breeze to pick up, having swapped the two headsails and their poles this afternoon to set up for a starboard tack to the next waypoint.

In the latest forecast the GFS has now changed significantly and is consistent with the ECMWF, showing a strong southerly change on Friday morning. With current progress we are hoping to be safe inside Port Bundaberg by midnight Thursday. With a little luck we will be spared an unpleasant end to our circumnavigation.

Tuesday / Wednesday

We motored until 3:30AM on Tuesday, when the breeze picked up just enough to allow us to make 5.8 knots.

The currents had migrated a little with the most recent forecast, allowing us a bit more direct route to Hervey Bay.

It turned into slow day of hard yakka to eke out every last fraction of a knot of speed that we could, with little wind and at least half a knot of adverse current. Clearly, we’ve been spoilt by the conditions up to the halfway mark, but motor sailing and making 4.5 knots when we need to average 5.8 was not fun.

We swapped the two poles again so the sail plan is set for the port tack which should take us into the East Coast Current and then towards Sandy Cape.

The breeze slowly returned late on Tuesday, with the current is clocking around aft of the beam as well, so our speed picked up to the mid sixes.

The day’s run on Wednesday morning of 134 miles was not too bad given the conditions, and we needed to average under 5 knots to get in before the southerly change (earliest forecast now 7AM Friday) – doable, wind and current willing.

Tuesday / Wednesday

For our last night at sea we were blessed with idyllic conditions. The sea state was superb, with a longish 1.5m swell from behind – hardly any roll, just a gentle rhythm. We had about a knot of current with us and around 20 knots steady SE breeze to hustle us along at better than 7 knots. The combination of sea, current and wind created a sense of effortlessness, as if the boat has become super slippery.

We crossed the river of shipping between China and the major Australian ports of Brisbane Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne in the early hours of this morning and crossed our outbound track (June 2019), about 10 miles offshore from Bundaberg.

The ship’s clock was set to AEST (UTC +10] this morning and we had 65 miles to go until we dropped anchor.

Our detour north paid dividends throughout the night as we entered the Australian East Coast Current, following its curve north of Fraser Island. The current, fair wind and benign sea state allowed us to keep the pace up above 7 knots until the wind started abating in the early hours. At 5AM we had to douse all sail as they were just flapping and we started motoring for home. We had 1.5 knots of current going our way, as we hitched a ride on the flood tide into Hervey Bay.

We spent tidying away sails, cleaning the cabin and rinsing the salt off the boat, getting her all Bristol for clearing in on Friday.

Savusavu to Nouméa

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Departure

We were waiting at the Fiji Revenue and Customs offices at 07:30 (Thursday) to clear out, and by 8AM the friendly customs lady had done our paperwork. Unfortunately, it then took the lady from immigration 45 minutes to walk over (from next door) and stamp our passports. Regardless… we were on the 9AM ferry back to Nawi Marina, and by 9:28 we had left the dock.

We loved it at Nawi Marina and rate it one of the best marinas we’ve visited anywhere. It helps that it is new, but the care with which it was designed, added to good management, elevates it to a class of its own. The bathroom facilities deserve special mention – six bathrooms, each with a little tropical garden and fitted out in top class fittings, and not a single cold shower in the week we were there. Loved it!

Conditions were very the first day. My misgivings about departing into a headwind were unfounded, as we sailed most of the day on a close reach in about 10 knots on a calm sea. It was very pleasant. We rigged the spinnaker pole so we could set the genoa to weather if necessary.

Early evening we turned 30 degrees to starboard to take us south of Viti Levu, putting us on a beam reach for the rest of the night. At watch change (1am) the wind shifted further aft and we set the genoa on the weather side, very grateful we had rigged the pole during daylight hours. Apart from negotiating some crossing traffic between 2am and 4am, the rest of the night was uneventful. The wind died around sunrise, and we started motoring. While there was no wind, we also set the staysail on the lee side and dropped the main. We were now ready for the tailwinds we expect to carry us most of the way to New Caledonia.

Friday / Saturday

We motored most of Friday and then spent the night floating downwind in light wind on a calm sea – our favourite! There was a bit of weather in the early hours, and we struck all sail as there was no wind. We motored through a few gust swells and, when the wind started building in the morning put up the main and genoa. We steadily reefed down as the day went on. By 8PM we were down to two reefs in the main and the small genoa, sailing a reach in 15 to 22 knots of SE wind. The sea state was fairly comfortable still, with around a 2.5m swell at around 10 second period.

The various forecast models were beginning to converge for our arrival, and it appeared the (dreaded) southerly change would not come through until midday on Wednesday. It’s a race! We ) had to average 5.3 knots to get to the pass (Chanal de la Havanah) at sunrise, Wednesday morning. We hoped to get there early in the flood tide, so we would have an easy run in. Apparently, Canal Woodin, about 18 miles inside the pass, can get nasty in an ebb tide, so we were keen to get through there by the middle of the day.

Sunday /Monday

We were still on a broad reach for most of Sunday, but at sunset we dropped the main and set the #3 and staysail on the spinnaker poles as we were expecting the wind to back about 20 degrees by midnight, making the reaching sail plan difficult to sustain. This made the next six hours awkward as the wind still regularly gusted 25 knots, veering onto the beam at the same time. This was compounded by a strong north setting current which, at its peak, required turning a further 15 to 20 degrees into the wind. Add a lumpy sea, and it made for a less than peaceful first half of the night.

Just after midnight the wind backed as forecast and we were now on a nice downwind angle with the apparent wind at about 150 degrees off the port bow. Relief all round, as we would not have set the poles in the dark – just too unpleasant and risky. The upside was that conditions were now perfect, with a small long period swell and the boat sailing upright with little roll. Great for the off-watch (me) to get a decent 5 hour sleep!

The wind steadily backed and abated to about 15 knots throughout the early hours, and it was idyllic – so good that we rustled up eggs Benedict and a big salad for breakfast!

Tuesday

At 0830 UTC+11 the trip log stood at 705 miles, making another 140 miles for the preceding 24 hours. We have 98 miles to go to the pass into the Chanal de la Havanah.

We changed the ships clock to Nouméa time this morning, one more time zone and we’ll be in Australian Eastern Standard time! We had another good day yesterday, running all day and most of the night with the two poled out headsails in a perfect SE breeze of 15 to 18 knots.

At 4:15AM this morning the wind died as if it had read the forecast and we started motoring. With around 5 knots of true wind from astern we had nothing filling the sails, so we rolled up the genoa and dropped the staysail on the deck, lashing it to the lifelines. The poles were just moved towards the bow as far as practical and we left the cleanup for daylight hours.

Arrivee, Port Mouselle, Nouméa

As anticipated the last 12 hours to the Chanal de la Havanah was completed in pretty much calm conditions, so we motored through the night. We entered the pass around 4AM and it was uneventful and straightforward. The pass is deep and well-marked, with lateral lights and leads, so only requires a long concentration span. As we entered at the start of the flood tide, the sea state was benign.

We still had the tide behind us as we traversed the Canal Woodin, and perfectly calm conditions.

Shortly after exiting the Canal Woodin the forecast southerly change arrived, eight hours earlier than the earliest forecast(!). This made for a thoroughly unpleasant last few hours as we sailed in 25 to 30 knots of gusty wind with a rapidly deteriorating sea state.

Fortunately, it was pretty quiet still inside the marina at Port Mouselle, and my apprehension about getting safely into a berth was unfounded.

Landfall, Vava’u, Tonga

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TLDR: We are on a mooring in the southern part of Neiafu harbour, after 9.5 days and 1,330 miles of sailing. The last few hours were painful as a stationary squall just north of Vava’u caused the winds to go gusty and on the beam. We dropped all sail and with the poles and all their rigging still up we could not really clear everything in a heaving sea for a beam reach. So we motored the last 20 miles…

Not a great way to finish, but we are here, in daylight, and ready for a beer! We’ll worry about check-in tomorrow!

The wind finally backed a bit more to the east yesterday morning, and we followed it at first to ensure we could make a decisive change to the downwind sail plan. By midday we were 1.5 miles south of the direct course and the wind was still backing, so we set about striking all sail and rigging the two poles for the goosewing setup. Conditions were not great, with a 2.7m confused sea rolling the boat in all directions while we were wrestling with heavy gear on the foredeck. We initially left the main and genoa up to help steady the boat while we set the big spinnaker pole to port. With conditions increasing the risk of someone going overboard, we were in harnesses and life jackets, tethered onto the jackstays for the duration. An hour and a half later the staysail was hoisted and the #3 genoa unrolled. Peace descended as Sunny Spells scooted off towards Vava’u at 7 knots.

Conditions were pretty good, and we averaged 6.6 knots overnight, directly towards our destination.

On the equipment front, the eutectic tank in our fridge has on occasion spilled sickly fluoro green coolant into the fridge over the last few months. Yesterday we repacked everything into the freezer (nothing like a bit of redundancy on a boat) and I disassembled the cover over the eutectic plate. It appears there’s a design flaw that allows the coolant to be hydraulically pushed out the little standpipe tube that holds the temperature sensor thermocouple. While I always have the filler cap loose, the coolant has quite a high viscosity so appears to seal the threads anyway. When we are on energy saving mode, the plate cycles through a wide temperature range, and the expansion of the air above the coolant causes a pressure increase, pushing the coolant up the standpipe. I replaced the filler cap with a short nipple that will allow free flow of air into and out of the tank and added coolant to the tank to get it up to the correct level. Hopefully that is that…

But I digress…

Crossing the International Date Line

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The wind and sea state continued to be challenging all Friday, with the wind speed increasing as the day wore on. Mid-afternoon we took a third reef again and rolled half the headsail away. It was early hours of Saturday morning before the wind started abating and the sea state slowly improved. Of course, it’s always feast or famine, so we were soon motoring, with our hopes of a Sunday arrival receding.

The weather continued awkward, with regular gusts to the mid 20’s on the beam. It was also quite variable, so there’s a lot of shaking out of reefs and then re-reefing, all in an effort to maintain a decent rate of progress, as we need to maintain 6.5 knots to get there in daylight tomorrow. The sea state has been lumpy and we regularly get slapped by a breaking wave on the beam or port quarter, and it is pretty rolly. Not our favourite passage so far.

The ships clock was set forward to UTC+13 as we crossed the International Date Line (at 169.5 degrees west here) in the early hours of the morning (so instead of Saturday it is now Sunday). We are currently ahead of pretty much everyone on the planet, and a day older, which we can ill afford!

I had not appreciated just how arbitrary the date line is. Apparently, according to my mate Chat-GPT, there is no international treaty that defines the line and each country in the area has just made up its own rules, often out of convenience. The line on the map is just an interpolation of the resulting jigsaw.

Fun fact!