Taking inspiration from the wine bottle

The other night we opened a bottle of locally-bought (but Australian) wine - a cheap but quite cheerful little number.

The name has a sailing connotation and, as it happened, proved to be a spookily accurate forecast for when Graham climbed the mast the following day to carry our a routine rig check.

"If Claire Murtagh can do it, I'll have a go!" - Graham at the masthead

The view of the Copra Shed marina and moorings, Savusavu

Whilst at the masthead he noticed that the shackle holding the turning block (pulley) for the Spinnaker Halyard looked a bit worn and so he changed it for a new one, When we examined it in the cabin, it was clear that 2 years' of use had worn it significantly - a breakage wouldn't have been good!

The worn shackle

The coin shows how close a worn shackle was to becoming a broken shackle!

So, in future, we'll study the labels of our wine bottles with more care and it we see one called Shredded Sails we'll definitely stay in harbour.

Tomorrow we're attending a 'chart-marking seminar' rub by an ex-pat called Curly Carswell who has been sailing the Fijian waters for about 18 years. He'll share information on the best anchorages and the places to avoid, as well as tips on how to get the most out of the experience here; should be a useful session. After that we'll stock up on fresh food and head out into the islands.

Photos from Savusavu

Our last boat had a 'clinometer'  mounted on the forward bulkhead - basically a little device that told us how far we were heeling over. Maunie doesn't have one but instead we have Glastonbury Ted.

GT, as he's known, wears various bandanas and neckties made of Galstonbury Festival wristbands, and he acts as an alternative clinometer. If he's upright, all's good, if he does a nose-plant then we're heeling over a lot!

Upright and happy

Heading for a big roll

Nose-plant! The crew are holding on.

We've enjoyed our first evening in Savusavu with a glass of wine in the cockpit as the sun set. 

Today we'll explore the local market to get some fresh fruit and veg and we'll be here for a few days to get our bearings. So far our impressions of Fiji are very positive - the quanantine and customs officials were extremely friendly and welcoming and the small town seems to be busy. After Neiafu it's positively a thriving metropolis and the cars and trucks are definitely better!

Finally, here's the picture of the Windpilot breakage:

a 24mm diameter stainless steel shaft snapped cleanly across

The German makers have already had another boat report an identical failure so have done a re-design and will send us new parts in the next few weeks.

Safely arrived in Fiji

At 9.00am local time we arrived in the anchorage at Savusavu after an easy night - the clear-in process was friendly and efficient and we are now moored up on a finger pontoon in the little Copra Shed marina. Great pizza for lunch with cold beer and wine, so all's well!

We'll post more when we recover from the sleep loss!

Tonga to Fiji Day 3 - a terrible loss (again)

Position at 00.30 UTC Thursday 26th June:

17 deg 25.61 mins south

178 deg 54.71 mins west

110 miles to run to Savusavu

 

All's very well aboard Maunie today – well almost all, more of this later. We are now in Fijian waters, sailing in between the Lau Group islands at the eastern side, in bright sunshine. The wind has been slowly decreasing through the night so we arrived at the islands at the perfect time, just after sunrise, and we now have gentle seas and a friendly 12 knot breeze so we've both managed some decent off-watch sleep, though Di complained it was very cold last night! At the moment we have the full mainsail and poled-out yankee set and are making about 5 knots which is an ok speed for us to arrive in Savusavu mid-morning tomorrow; overtime fees are very expensive to clear-in outside normal Monday to Friday working hours so we're watching the projected ETA on the chart plotter carefully and we'll probably hoist the Parasailor again this afternoon to speed up a bit.

 

The islands look very beautiful and it's a real shame we can't stop at them but the penalties for so doing before clearing in to the country at an official port of entry are high (several thousand Fijian dollars plus the threat of expulsion) so we'll have to beat back against the prevailing wind in a few weeks to visit them. The Lau Group islands are pretty much untouched by tourism so only a few foreign yachts visit and we've heard about some amazingly enthusiastic welcomes from the villagers. So for the moment we're content to see them slipping past us as we pick our way through the reefs but it's very exciting to visit our first new country for a while.

 

We'll arrive at about the same time as an American boat called Bravo who are on the SSB radio net. They are approaching from the south, directly from New Zealand, and reported a really bad night with consistent 30-knot winds and big, 3 metre swells breaking with green water over the decks; neither Adam or Cindy slept at all. The constant washing of sea water has found a leak in the deck somewhere and the salt water has been tracking down a wiring duct under the deck; they suddenly saw sea water running out of their radio set, mounted in a navigation panel in the cabin, so they are worried about what damage has been done to the electronics.

 

We, unfortunately, had a war story to trade with them. At 21.00 local time Maunie suddenly veered off course and gybed; Dianne was on watch and went straight to the wheel but it took us a couple of minutes to get things back under control. Looking over the stern with a torch, we had a sickeningly familiar feeling when we saw that the new Windpilot rudder had disappeared into the depths of the Pacific. Regular readers of the blog will remember that the original 16 year-old one failed en-route from Tonga to New Zealand last October and that we'd got a whole new unit, of a 'new and improved' design, sent from Germany. Now, after only 1600 miles of sailing, it too had failed with a similar fatigue fracture of the main vertical rudder shaft.

 

At first light we were able to withdraw the 24mm diameter stainless steel shaft from the top of the unit to find a perfect brittle fracture across it at the point where it was drilled and tapped for the top fastening bolt for the rudder blade. We've exchanged emails with the manufacturer and will wait for further advice; we're one of the first boats to have one of the new design models fitted so unfortunately we've turned into a test boat. Thank goodness the rudder didn't break off when we had the Parasailor up a few hours earlier as a sudden loss of directional control could have been very messy with a huge flapping sail wrapping itself around the rig.

 

So, now that the shock has worn off, we're counting our lucky stars that it happened when it did and that we are heading somewhere where it'll be possible to get replacement parts sent out from Germany, once a better design solution has been found. We're now running on the electric autopilot, which isn't ideal given our depleted battery capacity but at least the solar panels are recharging the batteries really well at the moment and we'll run the generator for a couple of hours in the night. Never a dull moment....

Tonga to Fiji Day 2

Position at 02.00 UTC, Wednesday 25th June:

18 deg, 02.37 mins south

176 deg 52.87 mins west

239 miles to run

 

Our first night at sea wasn't brilliant – lots of rain squalls showing as bright orange splodges on the radar so we did our best to slalom between them. It was, and remains, pretty rolly with the wind directly behind us but at least today we have some sunshine and we're currently making very good progress (over 7 knots) with the Parasailor up. Actually we're going too fast, so will drop it in an hour and then run under just a foresail so as to arrive at the first of the Lau Group islands (the eastern side of the Fiji group) at dawn tomorrow as they don't have any lighthouses and we should be in harbour 24 hours later.

 

All's well aboard Maunie and we had a brief chat on the radio with Stormvogel – Peter was in very good spirits and looking forward to arriving in Australia – they were 400 miles from Cairns.

 

That's about it from us at the moment – we're both tired as is usual for the start of a passage but otherwise very well. Would prefer to be watching Wimbledon, though!

Good news from Stormvogel

After an anxious night waiting for news we were very relieved to hear Peter on the SSB net this morning. The team at MRCC Australia (Marine Rescue Coordination Centre) had asked a cargo ship to divert to their position and some wood and two bags of concrete were transferred across to Stormvogel – we presume that they poured concrete into the small bilge section around the centreboard axle to seal it.

 

Anyway Peter sounded very relieved and happy to be sailing again in what he described as 'great sailing conditions'. One of the other German boats, Voyager, said on the net, "So it's really a good idea to sail with other boats." to which Peter replied drily, "Yes, especially if your boat is called Stormvogel!".

 

No doubt they'll update their blog www.wiedekamm.com once they've caught up with some sleep.

 

Meanwhile, we've had a hot and busy morning running around all the various offices to clear out of Tongan waters and are about to set sail )11.30am local time. The forecast looks ok – a bit gentle and variable today then 12-15 knots south-easterlies so we hope to be able to get the Parasailor flying.

 

We will post a quick update tomorrow.

Culture shocks, terrible cars, the King, plans to head west and worried about Stormvogel

We're planning to set sail for Fiji tomorrow so this is our last full day in Tonga. We'll miss the place, actually, having got used to its slightly chaotic ways and having met some really nice people but we're looking forward to seeing Fiji. We'll be heading to Savusavu on the eastern of the two big islands, Vanua Levu; it's just over 400 miles from here so we'll leave around lunchtime tomorrow (Tuesday) and aim to arrive on Friday morning.

A few last photos of Vava'u to illustrate some of the quirky aspects of life here:

A P&O cruise ship arrived for a day last week so the town was suddenly full of pale-faced, perspiring overweight tourists who looked uncomfortably out of place. 

2000 passengers arrive in Neiafu

But some stayed aboard to watch the football!

No doubt the visitor were as entertained as we are by the wide array of fine sporting motorcars on the streets.

Held together with duck tape!

A small chip in the windscreen 

A secure boot

Since the ship left, the tempo of life has suddenly increased here. There's a big church conference over then next few days so about a thousand people have arrived from other Pacific islands and from as far away as the USA. We keep meeting little groups of ernest-looking God-botherers in matching polo shirts with catchy logos such as "Tonga Mission 2014" as they crowd into the internet cafes in search of a signal from above. The most exciting aspect of this very exciting event has been the arrival of the King of Tonga.
The roads were swept and bunting put out and a slightly rickety archway has been constructed over the main street in Neiafu with a welcome banner for His Majesty. With typical Tongan efficiency, it was completed the day after his arrival but he's here for ten days so will get to enjoy it. We were walking towards it on Sunday morning when the royal motorcade swept past:

The royal 4x4

Must be the King!

We'll try post an update or two from sea but, finally, our thoughts are with Peter & Heidi aboard Stormvogel. They reported on this morning's SSB radio net that they have a serious problem; last night they found water leaking in from the axle of their lifting keel and it seems one of the bearings (newly-fitted in New Zealand) has broken and there was a lot of water sloshing about in the bliges. At one stage they issued a Mayday emergency call but have now withdrawn that, having managed to reduce the water flow to a rate that they can keep up with using their bilge pumps. Thankfully they have 2 other boats, a sailing yacht called Oda and a motor yacht called Southern Star, standing close by with them and they have a call every 2 hours from the Australian rescue centre to check on their progress. Stormvogel has about 800 miles to run to Cairns in Australia so we hope that they can keep on top of the leak until then. We'll update this blog with their news as we get it.