A couple of amazing slices of history

As mentioned in the last blog update, we made a stop in Buckinghamshire to meet up with Richard Fetherston (you'll remember him as one of the Atlantic Crossing crew) and his lovely partner Naomi. It was just great to see Richard again. Their cottage is currently being renovated so they recommended the aptly-named Jo So Cottage in the small market town of Winslow as a B&B.

400 years of character

The dining room and kitchen

 The cottage has been beautifully restored and has three en-suite bedrooms. The owner, Anna, lives next door and we were the only guests so had the place to ourselves. Anna came in to cook us a seriously good breakfast so we ended up staying there for 2 nights; she recommended that we visit nearby Bletchley Park.

We were so pleased that we took up her suggestion. For those not familiar with the name, BP (as it was known to the 9,000 service personnel and civilians who worked there during WW2) was the ultra-secret centre of code-breaking where huge amounts of ingenuity, brain-power and technology went into the process of breaking the supposedly unbreakable German Enigma and Lorenz codes. The work that went on there was classified Top Seret until the late 1970's but has now become widely understood to have shortened the war by about 2 years. The brilliant mathematician Alan Turing was one of the central players there and his work has recently become the main story of the film The Imitation Game.

BP has now become a museum, with a huge amount of effort and money spent to restore some of the code-breakers' huts to their WW2 condition. You get a very clear idea of what went on there and we spent a whole day learning about it all; thoroughly recommended if you are ever near Milton Keynes.

Bletchley Park house

Some of the restored huts. The team in each hut focused on just one part of the huge jigsaw of breaking the German and Japanese codes and people there would have no idea what went on in the neighbouring huts.

B Block, now home to an excellent Enigma museum

A working replica of Alan Turing's 'Bombe', an electro-mechanical device which helped crack the encryption settings (changed daily) on the German Enigma machines

Rear view of the Bombe

A statue of Turing with an Enigma machine

Recognition of BP as the birthplace of British computers

A huge machine, aptly named Colossus, was built here to crack the even more sophisticated Lorenz code and this has become recognised as the world's first electronic computer.

When the war ended, the teams were dispersed and the people returned to academia or civilian life with strict instructions not to divulge to anyone just what they had done at BP. It was only as the secrets became declassified some thirty years later that they could talk about what they had done and the museum features recordings and videos of many of these amazing people. 

The Northern Loop

The weather might have been cold but the warmth of the welcome that we've received 'up North' has been wonderful. We've loved the proper English pubs, traditional fish 'n' chips, meet up with family and friends and even had some snow.

We spent a lovely few days with Di's Dad, sister Norma and Mick and caught up with nephews and their families in Hambleton, near Blackpool. Whilst there we met for the first time our great-nephew Freddie and great-niece Eve - not sure how we feel about being Great Aunt and Great Uncle (makes us feel only slightly old!) but it was a joy to meet the new members of the family.

Signs of Spring - Crocuses in the Poulton le Fylde churchyard

Di and her Dad

The G.A/U.'s with Eve

Freddie

A meal with Di's school friends Debbie (plus, hubby, Paul), Jane and Eileen illustrated the fact that real friends just pick up from where they left off, even if that was three years ago; something we've experienced again and again.

Nephew Gary at work in his studio

The move up to Galloway saw us apart for the first time in 3 years - Graham drove up for a couple of extra days with his parents and Di followed by train a couple of days later to allow her to have quality time with her family (and a great send-off). Just before Graham left we called in to see nephew Gary at work in his studio - have a look at his website to see what kind of magic he does with a paintbrush HERE

Whilst in Scotland we saw Graham's sister Hilary and her husband Phil. Hilary's another hugely talented artist and does wonderful portraits of pets; if you're short of a present idea have a look HERE

From Scotland we drove east to County Durham, with a tourist stop at the very good Roman Army Museum on Hadrian's Wall, to stay with Simon and Julie in Hamsterley. Simon was in the same graduate intake as Graham in his first job with Northern Foods and, like us, is following his dream. He's always wanted to make cheese so has now set up The Weardale Cheese Company (you heard of it here first, folks); if his enthusiasm is anything to go by, it'll be the great success that he deserves.

Proud man and his pasteuriser (on a non-production day so no white coat and hat)

Cheese maker and glamourous assistant - you decide which is which!

Whilst we were in the north east we were treated to a dusting of snow just to make the winter tour complete:

We'll be back in warm NZ soon!!

The 'Northern Loop' concluded with a night in our old village of Crich, Derbyshire, where we stayed with our friends Neil and Jacqui. Slightly strange to see our old house (we left there in 1999).

The Pump House, Dimple Lane

 We're now heading south, back towards Somerset. En route we've stayed in a beautiful 400 year old cottage and visited Bletchley Park, possibly one of the most important places in Britain during WW2. This deserves a blog all of its own so watch this space.

This is Ardwall

Our last two boats, Gentoo and Maunie, have had the 'of Ardwall' tail added to their names. You can pretty much call your boat 'of anywhere' but most people who use the addition (it's entirely optional) will choose their home port. 

'Our' Ardwall is named after a small island in the Solway Firth in Galloway, south-west Scotland. It was here that Graham learnt to sail (at the age of six) with his father, Geoff, in a National 12 racing dinghy. This was a boat not well-suited to beginners (it was said they'd roll over if placed on a field of wet grass) but despite the archaic rig of shorts, rugby jersey and life-jacket Graham survived the early and regular unexpected cold swims to grow to love sailing.

Ardwall was also the placed where Dianne first sailed with Graham - for a few years we sailed a madly-fast Dart 18 racing catamaran here and Di was equally stoic about sailing in these chilly waters (she did have a dry-suit, though!). So Ardwall Island but was the start of a long sailing journey that has led us to voyage to New Zealand. 

Our 'Shivering Sailors' tour has now taken us to Scotland, despite rather wintry weather, Graham and Geoff managed a walk along the coast with Ardwall visible a couple of miles away. With Maunie of Ardwall moored thousands of miles away in Opua, it was a poignant sight.

Ardwall in the distance (to the left of the buoy rope)

A closer view of the island, with wading birds in the foreground

The 'Shivering Sailors' UK Tour

We're now two and a half weeks into our UK tour and, thanks to a raid of our store of winter clothes, are just about acclimatised to the wintry temperatures!

We began with a couple of days in London, enjoying the sight of old buildings, churches and monuments and meeting up with friends. Treated ourselves to coffee and pastries in Fortnum & Mason too!

The  wonderful Fortnum's coffee bar

Most expensive mid-morning snack for some time! Worth it, though.

From London we headed down to Somerset by train for a few days with Karl & Jo. Unfortunately for Graham and Karl, who were looking forward to catching up over a few pints in the village pub, Graham got food poisoning (from a final cooked breakfast in London we think) so it was an enforced 3-day crash diet! Apart from that we had a brilliant catch up and went into Yeo Valley to meet friends and colleagues there before joining some of then in Cardiff for the enthralling England Vs Wales rugby.

We drove on to our south-west leg of the tour - Poole, Dorset, to stay with Graham's aunt Sue &husband Laurie, then Dartmouth, Devon, to see Joe & Jayne then on to Truro, Cornwall, to catch up with our best man Simon and Kerry, daughter Charlie and goddaughter Belle. The warmth of all their welcomes was wonderful.

With Sue and Laurie at Poole Yacht Club

Joe & Jayne outside their Dartmouth Canvas Factory

The Canvas Factory - a great place!

With Simon and Kerry at the Pandora Inn

We returned to Somerset where our friends and neighbours Andy & Lucinda generously lent us their lovely house for a few days whilst we spent a couple of days re-organising and condensing our furniture storage in nearby Bridgwater. We also met the new tenants of our house and did a landlords' inspection with the letting agent; we were relieved and delighted to find the house in excellent condition.

We've now headed northwards, with a night with Steve & Barbara and goddaughter Amy (who joined us for a couple of weeks in Fiji) in mid-Wales and are now in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire with Di's sister Sue, Mark and niece Laura. We had a superb Lebanese meal in nearby Alderley Edge with them, plus eldest niece Amy and her partner Joe.

At Yara restaurant

It's now snowing quite heavily so a full English cooked breakfast has set us up well for a Sunday of limited activity and the Sunday papers; contemplating the roast beef dinner to come. Lovely.

Tomorrow we head further north to Lancashire to stay with Dianne's father and to see more family and friends before moving on up to Graham's family in south-west Scotland. Hoping (not very optimistically) for warmer weather soon!

Heading back for a taste of winter

Looking at the weather forecasts for the UK, we are seriously questioning our sanity but we leave Auckland (current temperature about 25 degrees) this evening and arrive, shivering, in London on Monday afternoon. The last few days have been spent finding whatever warm clothes we have and remembering what you do with socks (not worn for quite some time!). We've borrowed a couple of wheelie suitcases and packed quite a lot of stuff that's not wanted on voyage. 

Huge thanks go to Tony & Claire and Trish & Ian for making the last couple of days so easy for us - Horace the Honda is safely parked in Birkenhead (not a sentence I ever thought I'd write!) and we had a great Vietnamese meal in downtown Auckland last night. Having successfully completed our Alcohol-Free January, we celebrated Trish's birthday in style.

Maunie's safe and secure on her mooring in Opua with a local guy checking her whilst we are away.

So this'll probably be the last blog update until we return in March - emails to our usual address will find us whilst we are on our UK tour.

Our last sail for a while - and regaining Maunie's balance

We excited and slightly stressed - there are various lists being added to and ticked off as we prepare to leave Maunie safely on her mooring in Opua (with regular checks by Mike, a local chap who looked after her for us last year when we were exploring South Island by car) to fly home to our first taste of winter in three years. How will we cope?!

Anyway we took time out for a really good day-sail on Monday out in the Bay of Islands. With a good Force 4 (about 16-18 knots) to beat into, it was the ideal test to see if we'd improved Maunie's balance.

Sorry, for non-sailors, this post will be a bit full of boat-speak but hope it'll make sense.

Most of our voyaging from England has been with the assistance of the Trade Winds pushing us along from behind but the passage down to NZ from Fiji was nearly all to windward, with the sails hauled in tight and the boat heeling over. The 8 days gave us time to experiment with the setting of the sails and the balance of the boat and we came to the conclusion that Maunie just wasn't really happy in these conditions. All monohulls have a degree of 'weather helm' which means that if you let go of the wheel or tiller they will turn into the wind and stop. Too much weather helm isn't good as the rudder starts to act as a brake and it's just tiring to steer.

We were finding that Maunie just didn't feel properly balanced and that we had to reef the mainsail earlier than expected to ease the pressure on the wheel. The yankee (the front sail) was hard work to winch in and just felt too powerful for us in anything above about 15 knots of wind.

So on our arrival in Opua (and with the benefit of experience of being here before and knowing whom to turn to) we talked to a couple of local experts and explained our thoughts. The first was Roger Hall of North Sails who's been sailmaker for about 30 years and runs the repair loft in Opua pretty much single-handed. He came aboard, looked at the rig and said "The yankee clew should come to about here when you're going to windward.", pointing at a spot astern of the mast and above the cabin top. The clew is the back corner of the sail where the sheets (ropes) are attached, by the way.

"Ok, but it actually comes to here" said Graham, pointing to a spot about a foot further astern and a foot below Roger's pointing finger.

"Graham, you're not listening to me, it should come to here!" said Roger, his finger unmoved. 

It's probably easier to explain with a photo. 

Maunie is cutter-rigged, which means she has two foresails, the yankee and the staysail. Normally in these rigs the yankee is shaped 'high' so that the bottom edge rises up from the bow. Stormvogel's yankee is a perfect example:

Stormvogel beating to windward with the yankee and staysail complementing each other 

Maunie's yankee was much more like a genoa (the foresail of a sloop which has no staysail) as you can see from Jo Murtagh's great helicopter photo:

Maunie's lower and larger yankee

We took the sail off the boat and laid it out in Roger's sail loft where he took measurements and inspected the sail closely. The yankee was still in amazingly good condition so he felt it was worth investing some time to re-cut it. Using a computer programme which allowed the sail to be shown in its curved state, rotated at any viewing angle,  he came up with a revised shape which would sacrifice about 8% of the sail area but should achieve a better-balanced sailplan. We took a brave pill and said ok, let's do it.

Meanwhile we weren't entirely happy with the rigging either. Just before we left the UK we were advised to replace a spacing bar on the forestay, just below the roller-reefing drum.

The replacement spacer....

....also just visible below the furler drum - the line to the left rotates the drum when pulled so rolling the sail up like a blind

The design of the original had been known to fail without warning after a few years so this was definitely good advice. However, Graham had become increasingly certain that the new spacer had been made about an inch too long and so the mast was raked (leaning) back too much.

Step forward expert number two, Paul Smith who has just set up his own rigging business, NZ Yacht Services, in Opua. We worked with him last year when he was with a bigger rigging company and knew he had a very good reputation. Paul climbed aboard and had a good look at the mast and rigging and agreed with Graham. "We should get better forestay tension and the weather helm should reduce if we shorten the spacer by 20mm", he said, so that's what we did.

So, Monday's sail was the first proper test of our theories and would tell us whether the best past of £550 had been spent wisely.

The re-cut yankee, setting well

All three sails nicely set

We're delighted to report total success! Maunie felt beautifully balanced and for the first time could be helmed with just two fingers on the wheel. We were able to carry the full mainsail in wind strengths were we would have previously had to put in a reef and the slightly smaller yankee tacked around the front of the staysail much more easily (it used to get stuck mid-tack) and was easier to winch in. 

So much relief that this has all worked and we're indebted to Roger and Paul for their advice and skills.

Now we just have to resolve the puzzle of the under-revving engine, but that's another story for another time.

Better get back to the lists and the packing!

Six Go Mad in Tongariro - Part 2

There may be trouble ahead.....

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a challenging hike - 19.4km, climbing to 1850m above sea level and skirting around a volcano that last erupted in 2012. Nevertheless, it has become one of NZ's most popular day hikes with around 80,000 people doing it each year (and about two a week being helicoptered off!). We took local advice and, having left a car at the finish point the night before, arrived at the start at 06.00 to be ahead of the groups who arrive by bus. 

We were incredibly lucky to have almost perfect weather conditions - light winds and clear skies - and, although the start was a bit of a shock at only 4 degrees centigrade, the walking was pretty straightforward. The photos will, we hope, give you an idea:

The start of the trail, fleeces and long trousers needed. Di borrowed a walking pole from Shona and found it great as a guard against possible unplanned helicopter rides.

Early morning sun throwing long shadows as we climb

High-altitude vegetation

Resting, with the cone of Ngaurahoe (2287m) behind us

Looking back across the Southern Crater - the track from top-centre to bottom left is clearly visible

Scaling Mt Ngaurahoe is possible but it's a scramble up scree and adds 3 hours to the hike, so we didn't bother.

The 'Armageddon Light' - as in "Armageddon out of here!" if it flashes!

The Red Crater

A feature known as a dike in the side of the Red Crater. It was formed when molten magma moved to the surface through a vertical channel in the crater wall. It was left hollow as the magma drained out from its base and, being harder than the surrounding scoria, has been exposed by wind  and rain erosion.

Descending towards the Emerald Lakes - the very loose surface makes it a slippery slope

Steam venting near the Emerald Lakes

At the Emerald Lakes, looking back up to the Red Crater

Looking back towards the Red Crater, with Ngauruhoe behind

The Te Maari crater steaming gently. In 2012 it erupted without warning,,,,,

.... and hurled football-size rocks through the roof of the hikers' hut 1.5km away. Luckily no-one was sleeping there that night

.. and say a few prayers!

So, after just over nine hours we descended into the forest and wearily climbed into the car. A cream tea at the nearby Chateau Hotel revived us en route back to the cottage at the end of a fantastic day. Strangely enough, the trains didn't disturb our sleep that night!