Minerve reef to Opua, Bay of Islands, NZ

Time used 7 days 9h, Distant 859 NM, SOG 5.4 avg, 9 max, TWA 209, TWS in knots 11.6 avg, 25.5 max.

11/11-17/11 Sailing to New Zealand

Day 1, 11/11

Upwind sailing with, clouds but sunny in the afternoon. During night wind 10-11 knots and 5.6 knots of speed. Moon is up but hidden behind of clouds half of the time. We went out of the pass just after Alma but lost contact after some ours.

Day 2, 12/11

Motor sailing for several hours then Main and jib on Jemmas watch. Maria continue now 15-19 knots of wind sailing 6.4 knots. Jemma makes wonderful sprouts.

Day 3, 13/11 Lars sat mainsail after a front past by with 45 knots and a lot of rain. Jemma and Maria baked pancakes with banana in rom. Maria bake rye bread.

Day 4, 14/11 Maria have the watch in the morning with blue sky but cold so hat on, upwind 17 knots of wind, speed 7.4, Lars talk to Golf harbor and Polymagnet this morning like the other mornings. Nice sunshine but very cold. Jemma and Maria bake white breads.

Day 5, 15/11 Bright moon, very cold so fleece clothes, socks and hat. Then running the motor for loading batteries and the pressure goes down quickly after 1.5 hour! Maria baked rye bread and Gemma delicious garlic bread. Taste good with bacon, open face eggs and beans.

Day 6 16/11 Main with 3 reef and motor with course sat for Opua directly. Upwind sailing with high swells and the last days with a lot of wind. We had to hand steer and Jemma and Lars chaired the task. Sail as fast as you can David from Golf Harbor and Met Bob said so you can reach Opua before the storm and we did so.

Day 7 17/11 We so dolphins on the way into Bay of Islands. At 17 hour we reached Q bridge Opua New Zealand, just an our to late for a visit of customs. We had to stay over night there and could here the other sailors having a party in the tent. That was the all points rally.

18/11 Custom came at 9 o’clock. They took to bags of kidney beans and one bag of chick pea and all our sorted waist. Lars had to file a lot of papers even if they got all the information about us and Alexandra from scanned paper from Tonga. In the afternoon we attend seminar about diesel maintenance and epoxy and fiberglass. Afterwards we got pizza slices and Comedy show. We herd Irish music and several family´s with kids had made funny play etc.. That was a good start on our stay in Opua.

For a week we enjoyed the all points rally and met a lot of sailors we new before and of cause others we had not met. Jonas came in with Alma three days later and it had been a tough sailing the last days because of the high winds. Also the other single handed boats from Minerve we were together with came in a few days and had managed the stormy condition. 28 sailing boats were still on Minerve or French Caledonia and they came in several weeks later because they had waited for a good weather window. It was nice to see Confidence with Betty-Ann and David on our bridge.

Alexandra repairs

Rig

Two new steering wire.

Aft part of the life line exchanged for a new one.

Rig check; two sheaves in the top of the mast for the to main halyard shall be shifted out with new once. Toggle on SB lower shroud (undervandt) will be shifted out with a new one.

Boom goose neck shall be repaired.

Running backstage will be shifted with dynema backstage.

10 new blocks.

B&G Autopilot

Autopilot computer, log, depths sounder and temperature was exchanged for new once on the warranty.