The Journey is about to Begin...

Sorry I have been somewhat silent over the last few months.  I have had a lot of business issues to attend to as part of my process of removing myself from the operational side of my business so I can spend time at sea without being 'bothered'.  I have also had to arrange a lot of other 'stuff' for the boat.  Over the next week or two I will outline what that 'stuff' was and post photos.

Everything is now complete and we will be leaving on the first leg of the voyage on the next suitable weather window...likely to be next Wednesday.

The voyage will consist of two legs.

The first leg will be from Lyttleton in the South Island of New Zealand to New Caledonia via Cook Strait.  the second leg will be from New Caledonia to Phuket, Thailand with a couple of stop offs on the way, one at Darwin, Australia and the other at the Coco Keeling Islands in the Indian ocean before heading north to Phuket around the northern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia.

We may have other stops on the way, such as the northern reefs of New Caledonia, and some of the small islands in Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea.

There will be two of us on board.  Myself and crew lady, Marianna who is Chilean/Scottish.  My wife does not share my love of the sea and has no desire to go on a lengthy ocean voyage.  She will come and visit the boat once it is safely in Thailand in calm waters.

I advertised in findacrew.net for a suitable crew mate and had about 80 responses from around the world. Marianna had the right temperament and we seem to get on well so she will stay with the vessel until we get to Thailand.  I am confident it was a good selection.  

I plan on updating the voyage on a daily basis whilst in transit with position and time made good along with conditions.  I won't be uploading photos or videos whilst in transit but will do so when in port with a good internet connection. 

New Sails...

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had some new sails made to help light weather performance.  Unfortunately I have been out of the country for the last month and haven't had a chance to test them well.  Here are a few more photos and details of the two sails I referred to recently plus a new upwind sail.

Firstly the one for using when the wind is off the aft quarter.  The first photo shows the sail attached in the center and the next one shows and alternate position.  Both positions worked well.

The next photo shows the new upwind sail which also made quite a difference to performance. 

The next photo shows how the spinnaker is fixed.

Later in the month I will be doing some more sea trials so I will be able to share with you the performance in different conditions and sail configurations.

Stowage of Paddleboard...

I've been trying to figure out a good place to stow the paddleboard.  I use this a lot as it is more convenient in many situations than assembling the dingy.  I wanted somewhere easy to put it out of the way whilst sailing without cluttering up deck space.  I was towing it for a while but the slapping of it on the water disturbed the peace.  So, we made up a bracket on the aft beam and it fits on there nicely.

Only problem is that it interferes with the fairlead I have fitted for the drogue...so, I will have to figure out somewhere else I can put it in storm conditions in the event of having to tow a drogue.

 

DIve Compressor...

The new dive compressor is now fitted.  I had a bit of an issue where to fit it so it was out of the way when not in use.  The solution was to cut out the bottom of the aft seat and lower it by about 100mm.  It now fits in there nicely and is easy to lift out when needed for use.

New Sails...

I mentioned a while back that I felt the drifter was too small.  Also, you may recollect that Maxim who charters some Tiki's in Thailand made a suggestion concerning a spinnaker which he attaches to the stem of each hull.

I passed this info on to the boat builder Davie Norris and he referred me to Rodney Keenan of Evolution sails in Auckland.  I met up with Rodney as he happened to be in Fiji at the same time as me.  Rodney designs and makes many of the America's cup yacht sails including Oracles.  He also supplies sails for many of the round the world race yachts.

Bottom line...he designed both a spinnaker and another large downwind sail so that I could improve downwind performance a lot more.  He flew down to Christchurch last week to spend a day with me on the boat to learn how to get the best out of the sails.  I was delighted with the results.  The breeze was very light but we got 5 knots in 8 knots of breeze.

I have now commissioned him to build another sail to improve upwind performance.  Also, he is redesigning the jib which he confident will improve performance more.

During December I will be doing a lot of testing and documenting the performance of different sails in varying conditions which will be logged into a computer program which will in turn link into the routing/weather software to help improve passage making.

Video...at last.

Finally I have figured out how to upload a video. This is the video that I made back in January. Later that day the wind increased to 35 knots and the boat speed was just under 15 knots.

Tested out Drifter...

Yesterday I had the first sail for sometime and tested out the drifter sail.  It worked good but seems to be too small.  I will contact Rolly Taskers and have them make a bigger one for me.

Bulbs fitted...

Just prior to the earthquake I arranged to slip 'Natural High' for some further work and fit the bulbs that I have referred to earlier.

If you have been reading previous posts you will be aware that I added some additional buoyancy aft to compensate for the additional decking.  I deliberately overcompensated as I wanted to fit these bulbs as I figured that it would improve overall performance with additional waterline length and make it better for running 'downhill'.

The result was excellent.  We made the bulbs slightly smaller than originally planned.  This is because I made a decision to purchase a dive compressor which will be fitted under the aft seat, also to fit a DC air-con unit for the starboard cabin.  In addition I have decided to replace the current genset with another one built in Australia.

All of the above will add some weight aft of the center of buoyancy.  The compressor is on hand as is the air-con unit...just waiting for the delivery of the genset.

The trim of the boat is slightly down at the bow but when simulating the weight of the air-con, compressor etc it is perfect...so, I am really happy with it.  The waterline is where it should be and I have been able to fit on all my extra 'comforts'.