Well we launched April 10th 2000 and it took us til 10th June to get ready.
It was hard to find a flat screen monitor that could be screwed to a bracket at the nav station. We never did find one before we left. We had all sorts of programs and no screen. Not that it mattered, we could never have learnt to use the Mac sea, a French program, before we left anyway. There were to be 4 on the crew, myself, the owner, his friend and a vacuum cleaner salesman, who had sold us a cleaner and who wanted to do an ocean passage. The owner and his friend were 65; the friend had never been sailing and the owner not for years.
It was a mad scramble to get away; we were to be in Australia at 22 June at latest. What bugged me the most was the friend, who turned up 5 mins before cast off!!  We sailed in heavy rain, the customs had come down to clear us, my family sang 'waltzing imatilda' from the dock. It was tearful as I was emigrating to aust.We had fair reaching breezes out of Auckland. This was our first sail, dumb, stupid, but the stress I had been under for the past 3 years building, and the fact that I had not skippered a yacht offshore since 1981, clouded my judgment. The NZ coast is a good place to be away from, particularly at night, I gave the land a big offing as darkness came, the breeze was steady 20 knots from the south, it was about this time that
I discovered that only myself was able to steer to compass at night, the vac salesman, learnt real fast and soon was steering by the stars, the owner, however went in circles and became quickly disoriented. His friend could not steer at all, but down he went and got stuck in  the galley.The pilot was perfect, B & G All seemed sort of under control when the breeze died and then roared in 180 degree shift 30 knots, I  should have been ready, after all the forecast was for a change, but there was just too much on my plate.
WE crash gibed, the vectra lashing fastening the mainsheet block to the track car snapped, this despite its 9 ton load rating, later we were told, hey vectra cant stand shock!! The boom was out and thrashing and 720 square feet of mainsail doing the same, we crash gibed twice more, I could not understand why, but realized that at the same time as the gybe the steering had failed, we did not realize this until we took her off pilot.. The main is in boom furling and despite the sail being right out we managed to furl it, the furling gear is operated by a hydraulic winch of enormous power, we got the main down with no damage, and the headsail off her at the same time, roll furling bamar electric gear. Meanwhile the seastate was rising and a fresh gale was getting worse we rigged the emergency tiller, which has a fork on the end and slots over the stock of the rudder, unfortunately the fork was not closed with a bolt and the tangs just peeled off. Now we were in the S --- WE WERE 5 MILES OFF CAPE RODNEY, we had the helm down and the bloody engine would not start, this was later to be a major problem as the high pressure pump developed air in its top and each time we started we had to bleed right through. I am a ships engineer too, and this problem kept up for the next 1200 miles meanwhile a white faced a very frightened crew, looked at me and said ?what now" I put out a pan and we steamed in circles for the 2 hours it took the volunteer coastguard to arrive. Meanwhile a check told me a fitting had failed and dumped 4 gals of thin hydraulic fluid into the owner?s brand new stateroom!! The owner, who is one of those very rare gentlemen, took this all in his stride. The damage here later cost me some 10000
Subject:� rescue
All this happened about 2100 hrs I would say, Great Barrier island radio were keeping watch on channel 16 vhf, we could not raise anyone 2182 ssb, at about midnight we saw the lights of the coastguard rigid inflatable, we had then on vhf all the time, we had maintained our position and were still 5 miles off to seaward of Cape Rodney Nimbus 2 is 19 ton, the cutter tow was taken up by this inflatable rigid, with two 150 hp outboards, I was amazed at how well she handled it, the sea state was by this time, abating and the wind had dropped, to what I do not remember. They started to tow us back to Sandspit, it was very cold, I remember, I was very tired and shocked, the M55 tracked quite well, but without helm assist did yaw a bit, after about an hour and a half, a 43 foot fast cruiser came out from Auckland and took up the tow. At 0300 hrs we picked up a mooring in sandspit I transferred to the cruiser and went back to Auckland with them, I tried to sleep forward but we were doing 25 knots into a nasty chop, I was frozen, exhausted and very down. In the chill of dawn, the coastguard dropped me at my sisters house, have coarse, we had by this time transferred to a car. And there Steph, tucked me up with a hotty, and I grabbed an hours shut eye. AT 0900 I went to various stores and got together the things needed to repair the steering. I then drove up to Sandspit, left my car at the dock, and started out to try clean the mess and fix the steering. The NZ Customs sent a boat out and cleared us back into the country. They were very sympathetic. We decided a nights rest would do us a turn, so we rested and decided to seek the help of two professional crew, which we would meet at Opua further up the coast. So on the tide we left tidal sandspit and made towards Bay of Islands
Subject:� next, night passage to Opua
As I said, we left Sandspit, towards Opua, which is the most Northern clearing point from NZ. It was night when we rounded Cape Brett, 2200 and raining, and cold, because this stop was not on our original schedule, we had no charts of the Bay Of Islands, but unlike my landfall here 20 years ago, we now had radar, so Whale Rock which we nearly struck all those years back, returning from Fiji, showed up on radar and so did all of the channel markers. We anchored off Russell for the night. Next morning we steamed up to Opua, where we took a slip, and waited for our "professional" crew to arrive We then repaired the damage to the track ends and here I can?t say enough in praise of the Harkin blocks. Although I managed to get Harkin balls spilling everywhere. To my horror we discovered that the boom, had dented the mast, in the gybe, the Leisurefurl boom, is a big U shaped channel, and the top leg of the U trough had wrapped into the mast. This should not be physically possible, but have you ever tried suing someone over a rig? Meanwhile the 2 crew turned up. Now I had asked for very experienced sailor, navigators yes the agency said, one had 75000 blue water miles and the other a little less wee found out that one had never done an ocean passage and the other had done almost none. They could neither navigate nor help in any other area, apart from sail change and steering. Of course this never came to light til we were round the top of NZ. TIL LATER STUART
Aug�20,�2002� 4:54 pm Subject:� Opua towards Cape Moreton Aust
After much ado, and waiting my cold weather clothes, which my sis was sending up by road transport, the owner was very fidgety, wanting to get away. So the friendly customs guy, who is used to yachties, cleared us, and said, go when you are ready We hung around til 1100, the coat did not get there, we, that is I filled in time trying to figure out why the new engine was surging, of course I knew it was air in the pump, but could not figure out how it was getting in, and why it would not bleed out, after changing all the filters, not just the cartridges but the whole filter body, I still was no further ahead. We sailed out of the BOI,s and up the coast, leaving the land well to leeward, it was during the early watches that the owner decided steering was not for him in the dark, he just could not steer by the compass, and many cant, it takes practice. It pays to find a star, and then used to the coarse that way, of course, I can steer by feel of the helm, but then I?ve been steering sailboats since age 12. Off the northern end of NZ IS A GROUP OF islands called Three Kings with GPS one SHOULD be close to them, as the currents off nz are running strongly eastwards, I went to bed around midnight, I cant remember the details, but jerry the new crew was on, and his mate came on later, I left them in charge.0800 saw us 100 miles off course, the current plus the way they took us had put us way out to sea, it was then that I realized that they new nothing about navigation, they did not even know how to put a waypoint into the chartplotter, Jeremy did the most lubberly thing he could possibly do, he called a course a bearing, now lubberly means, of the land, a landlubber, is self explanatory. This was a guy that had told the agency he had zillions of ocean miles, why did the agency not seek references? For the next two days it was a bit variable, but mainly cracked off, the auto pilot held us exactly on course and we made some progress, then we heard about an approaching front, the barometer started to drop, and then all hell broke lose
Aug�20,�2002� 11:13 pm Subject:� low in tasman
The forecast is "a depression lies over the eastern Australian coast, this depression is heading west at so and so knots, bringing strong winds" now what constitutes strong winds, and for how long, we know it?ll be on the nose, and sure enough it is, for 4 days we wait, by this time we have head winds, we have 900 to go, Vin, the owner is on watch as we moorsail into about eight foot seas and a 16 foot easy swell, it is about 2300, all afternoon we have been watching some weird cloud formation, the previous days we had mackerel skies and mares tails, Old sailors verse, "mackerel; skies and mares tails, makes tall ships, shorten sails, when the wind goes against the sun, don?t you trust her for back she?ll run" so the rain comes and the wind rises, 25, 35, 45, 55, and with it the most awesome lightening, Vincent pokes his head inside and yells out the wind speed, , by this time we are deep reefed and staysail, why on earth he is out there I?ve no idea, I wanted one man watches,  and stay below with the odd look on the screen, but they want two up, that?s the way to get tired, on pilot she is going steady into it at 6 knots, but the seas are rising. What we have now is a combination of high winds and adverse ocean current, and quickly the sea build til she starts to drop of waves, not badly, but enough for the boat builder to start thinking about how well the chain plates are bolted in, for although the yacht is alloy, I chose to bolt the plates to a strong web foundation, and not weld them, as welding weakens alloy, but I worried about the 6 ss bolts 16mm diam, and thought to myself, hell I should?ve used high tensile steel, I don?t know how much you all know about fetch, but wind waves can only reach a certain height if the fetch, or distance to land is great enough, the higher the wind the greater the distance to land needs to be before a wave can reach its highest, tables are readily available to read this info from Obviously fetch and time were against us and the waves were getting higher, we had to slow, we could not make headway without the engine. Then came engine trouble, the fuel suction lines, were plugged with alloy swarf, for two days I spent anything up to 4 hours in stints in the engine room, sucking and swallowing diesel and generally having a ball, I must say the yacht behaved magnificently, when lying ahull, she was like a duck, jerry the professional crew was seasick for 3 days, the other one, well he did his best, it was very hard to sleep, going into what were now 30 foot waves, which at times had no back, she would be very noisy and then rise way in the air and then dead quiet as she was in air, and then crack as she came into the trough. Nothing broke, except we lost most of our fresh water, I have no idea, how, maybe somebody left a tap running, with the engine going we would never have heard the pumps not cutting out, um er, we had Bill who liked to shower long and hard, and I could not get through to him, that water was for drinking only, in the end we came to port with 10 litres of emergency water intact Then jerry mutinied, he wanted to slow down, by this stage we were only doing 4 knots, he was petrified and became nasty
Sorry 'bout the delay peoples It became apparent as the gale worsened that the two professional crew had never been on the deep ocean, one just scratched his head and looked kinda bewildered, the over, went from being plain scared to being plain nasty, He the latter seemed to consistently do things that did not help the ship, but were to catch the attention of the owner, for instance when the owner was up and about jerry would show him weather on the radar, this amused me as I had just over the last few days shown this guy how to switch the set on !! He would then proceed to show the owner everything HE had written in the log. He would fuss around tidying the big stern lkrs and steering compartment, things that made him look like he was busy, and ignore things that were very important, like something loose on the foredeck, or up the mast, this character hated me with all his puerile being, . On the last day I had to be forcibly pulled off him by the owner and the rest of the crew, as he had completely wrecked the whole trip, which could have been quite enjoyable in the last days. More about how that happened later. The blow only lasted the three days and I have taken great care in calculating by the fetch and the wind strength, just how big the seas were and I have to say that at no time were they more than 30 feet, there are some shallow patches, like near the Wanganella Bank, where the seas were steep with no backs and as we fell off these waves there would be a tremendous crash, the only damage we sustained were some cracked glue lines under the wood veneer linings of the forward cabin, I new this, but was not worried as the hull is alloy and the smallest working of the boat can make the liners creak. Some lining around the chain plate area was creaking to, I had to convince myself that the alloy only needed to shift a couple of thou and this would cause the wood to creak the calm came but what wind there was headed us still even the boat pointing close this would mean we had to cover nearly one and one half miles through the water in order to make 1 mile good toward the destination, so we kept on under motor, another thing that showed up was that when we were in the rough weather, the fuel pickup would sucking air, despite picking up from a sump. We started to worry about out fuel, I HAD CALCULATED WE HAD ENOUGH FOR 2000 MILES, but it seems we had used more horsepower than I thought, plugging into the weather. At one stage we actually got a fair breeze and we stuck up the poleless spi for awhile, but it was to light to make us go fast, later in the shelter of Moreton bay we hit 13 knots 2 sail reaching, its just a pity we never had these champagne sailing conditions the whole way over. Looking at th3e USA hydrographic chart for June, the chart says that the wind is mainly in the southerly sectors for that month, of course Murphy intervened and the winds went the other way. We had Middleton Reef directly on the rhumb line, and we were to get there midday, it never showed on radar, but it proved to be an awesome place, we could see the wrecks that I knew were there, from quite away out, the reef is huge, and we had to keep bearing away from it as we could see it extended right across our track, It was the most fishy place, coming up out of the deep, layers of huge dolphins, up to 12 feet long, you could see down at least a hundred feet, the water was that clear, with a mask on, there would be no limit to the vis. in 74 a ferro yacht had left NZ for Aust, they never made it, I remember the time, quite clearly, but they hit the reef and were there 7 weeks sheltering in an old wrecked jap longliner, there are 2 other cargo ships up to, and we passed this area in respective, reflective silence, and I felt for the captains as I imagined them , totally, devastated when these lovely ships hit the reef in the middle of some night, long past, before the days of sat nav and gaps
This is a narrative by one of our members, known as "LazyJack".  Lazyjack is located in New Zealand.
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