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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

Bottom line the devastation was significant with 900 building now being demolished in the CBD and about 10,000 homes.  Our factory was significantly damaged and we have had considerable business interruption...but, everything is now under control and I can resume the finishing of the final points for the boat.

If you are interested in this there is a lot of stuff on it on google...'Christchurch earthquake'

As a result of the disruption I have had to delay my departure from New Zealand for a year.

However, last Saturday I went out for a sail to test out a few systems.  I was also able to get a few interesting results which I am sharing with you now.

The below photos are as we were sailing down the harbor with a breeze around 20 - 25 knots.  You will note on the read out of the speed and wind that we were doing 11.2 knots in 22 knots of wind.  Later in the day when we were a few miles out at sea we recorded 14.4 knots in 30 knots of wind.  Unfortunately I didn't have the camera handy at that point.  We had full sail up and it rode beautifully.

I did take some video but I still haven't figured out how to upload it here...soon.

Another point of interest.  At 25 knots of wind and 11 knots of speed there was no spray at all, on any angle.  At 30 knots it was still dry until we reached over 13 knots and then we got the odd dose of spray...but, at no time did we have a wave 'thump' the underneath of the cockpit.