Just Posted-Sailing to Oz

Sailing to Oz

"These are to certify, to whom it doth concern, that Fredrick D Roswold, a foreign man, Master of the Ship SY WINGS (8) registered tons (net), and Judy D. Jensen, Owner, Foreign, navigated with a crew of 0 British 0 Foreign, GRP built and bound for Brisbane, having on board cargo and stores as per statements attached, hath here entered and cleared their ship according to law.

"Given under my hand, at the Customs House, at the Port of Lata, in the British Solomon Islands, this 27th day of Nov. Two thousand and Two.
Willy (unreadable), Customs Officer."

On November 28, 2002, due a sick engine, we changed our plans to go to Hong Kong and instead set sail for Australia. Thereafter followed a 10 day sail in superb conditions.

Click here to read the whole story.

Fred & Judy, Bangkok

December 7, 2002-Sailing to Oz

Customs Clearance. Port of Lata,
"These are to certify, to whom it doth concern, that Fredrick D Roswold, a foreign man, Master of the Ship SY WINGS (8) registered tons (net), and Judy D. Jensen, Owner, Foreign, navigated with a crew of 0 British 0 Foreign, GRP built and bound for Brisbane, having on board cargo and stores as per statements attached, hath here entered and cleared their ship according to law.

"Given under my hand, at the Customs House, at the Port of Lata, in the British Solomon Islands, this 27th day of Nov. Two thousand and Two.
Willy (unreadable), Customs Officer."

Bound for Brisbane? Plans change.

While in Lata, in the Solomons, a potentially serious problem with Wings' engine arose: we found diesel fuel diluting the lubricating oil. After changing the oil and investigating the problem at some length we decided to return to Australia where we felt more confident we could get the problem fixed rather than proceeding onward into more remote places of the world.

The worst scenario:
We might have tried to get the work done in Gizo or Honiara, other cities in the Solomons, but we didn't know for sure if we could. What if the engine needed a rebuild? (one of the potential causes for the symptom was worn rings, and there had appeared in the exhaust some blue smoke and raw diesel) We had images of being anchored in some roadstead off a third world town with a disassembled engine unable to move the boat or even to charge the batteries except by solar in the wet season (no sun) waiting for parts from somewhere else and not sure of when they would arrive or even if they would fix the problem and dependent on a mechanic we might not trust, and worried about the weather.

Setting Sail
That scenario seemed like a nightmare. We didn't want to risk it. So on November 28 we gave up for this season our plans of going north of the equator to Palau, The Philippines, and Hong Kong and set sail for Brisbane Australia.

Sailing to Oz

Believe me this was a hard decision after planning the trip from the South Pacific to Hong Kong for over a year and with all the soul searching and emotional investment that went into the decision to go that way in the first place. But its not like we are giving it up forever, we can try again next year. In the meantime we'll go back to Australia and get the engine fixed. Once the decision was made we wasted no time. We informed our friends on Sheralee and Moet, two boats full of young adventurous sailors we'd met on the way north and grown close to, filed our departure plans with the customs officer (above) and weighed the anchor, sailing out of the harbour on Thursday morning. There were a lot of emotions we were feeling: relief that we had made the safest decision, sadness that we were leaving good friends once again, sadness too to be cancelling our plans, and also some worrying about making the long trip with a sick engine.

Here follows an account of the trip.
On the morning of Thursday, November 28 we weighed and set sail directly from the anchorage across from Lata. We didn't motor out of the harbour; we didn't think we could motor much, so we were saving the engine. Fortunately there was good wind. Once clear of Gaciosa Bay, where Lata is located, we turned to the SW and took our departure from the Solomons. "So long for this year" It was a close reach, in nice breeze, and we were hoping for an uneventful trip.

While working on the engine problem in Lata we had spilled about 5 gallons of diesel into the bilge, most of which we had restored to the tank, but the clean up we did then hadn't removed all of the diesel from the lockers and bilges. The odors were thick in the humid cabin and we were getting headaches and having trouble sleeping. So on the second day I did a massive cleanup with gallons and gallons of salt water and detergent followed by equal douses of freshwater from some spare water jugs. I had all the floor boards up and the settees apart, and I was covered in diesel and water and sweat. It was a messy and hot job, but after a few hours the boat was clean, and after a shower, so was I. From that point onward, for the next several days at least, we had a very nice sail with good winds and mostly mild seas.

Last night, shortly after midnight, the Southern Cross came up over the horizon and the seas flattened out, both good omens to me. Since sunset the evening before we'd been in some inexplicably bumpy water and the boat, while making good time, was bucking like a bronco with a burr under its saddle. I couldn't even write in the log book, so I was pretty happy to have that over with. Later I decided it was current against wind or the affect of the nearby Chesterfield Reef, or some such thing, but at midnight I thought that it was just the mean ocean and that the Southern Cross had just come up to enforce a truce on my behalf.

Day Six
We're now on our sixth day of this passage, and it's been five and a half days so far on port tack, fast close reaching in 15-20 knots of wind, and 150 miles per day just like clockwork. The weather pictures keep projecting a change in the conditions, mostly a switch to light NE winds, but it hasn't happened except for a brief period yesterday, when we put up the kite until the SE came back along with those weird waves. I don't care if the projections keep being wrong, as long as the wind stays like this it is going to be a fast sail to Brisbane. Each day of this stuff puts us one day closer to OZ, and one day less we would have to sit out light winds or battle a storm, if one came up.

This is the second longest passage we've made in Wings, after the 1998 crossing of the Pacific from Acapulco to French Polynesia, and like that one, we've spent days and days on the same tack rushing along through the seemingly endless blue ocean. On that trip we were making better time, with 25 knot winds behind us and me pressing too much and breaking things, mostly steering lines and blocks, and at that time I coveted the nine and ten knot surges and 180 and 200 mile days we were having. I loved to sit on watch at night and see the numbers on the knotmeter roll up into the nines. I wished for just a few knots more wind. Now I've learned a little, what Judy always knew, that its better to be comfortable than to be trying for records. Those days and nights were stressful, and hard on equipment as well as nerves. At nine knots the boat is thundering and at ten it's roar is awesome. On this trip we're sailing at seven and eight, and we've reefed the main, second reef actually, and the trip has been easier. But it's still good sailing. At nights I've been going out and standing in the cockpit holding onto a winch with one hand to steady myself against the sway and have just let the strong wind blow against my body and into my skin as the boat charges onward under the sky full of stars.

We also have been changing the engine oil underway. In Lata we bought all the spare diesel lube oil we could find in order to be able to change the oil in our engine after every few hours operation permitting us to run it on the trip to charge the batteries. So far the oil has held up and the problem with the engine, while still there, hasn't gotten worse or prevented us from charging the batteries. However we know and that we can't motor much, if at all, so we are hoping the wind continues.

Roaring in to the finish
On the seventh day, in the morning, the wind went into the NE and eased and we rested and had a leisurely day sailing downwind. The pace was much slower, three to four knots, and even the spinnaker wouldn't have done much to improve that unless we got some better angles or stronger breeze which we didn't. Instead we just lazed along with little motion and none of the usual sound of a boat under sail in the ocean. In the afternoon we played scrabble in the cockpit and Judy won, typically. By nightfall the wind went to the North and started to increase. At nine PM it was in the low twenties and we reefed. The wind continued to build, up into the high twenties, and with it the waves increased probably due to a counter current which was keeping our progress to the south less than our speed through the water would have led us to expect. We talked on the radio to a boat up ahead of which is experiencing a southbound current. Of course they are trying to go north so they are not happy with it but we hope to reach that current soon although I'm not sure why other than possibly reducing the waves since the slow day on day seven pretty much eliminated a Friday arrival in Brisbane. Now we'll probably have to slow down at some point to avoid coming in after dark and get there on Saturday which will be day ten.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Coral Sea
Click Here for a couple more photos from this trip.

June 8, 2002, Arrival In Yamba

Sailing to Yamba

June 6.
The open ocean, the deep blue sea. WINGS is back at sea and we're sure in the middle of it now. Blowin' forty out here. Wasn't supposed to, more like twenty the forecast said. Well, the wind is 40 and over, we're doing 9.5 knots on a broad reach with just a reefed main. We're rockin' and rollin'. What can I say? Here we are, like it or lump it.

We cleared Sydney Heads at 8:20, course 038 true, northeast towards Yamba. A nice, clear day, blue sky, blue ocean, but the wind was sort of strong, and we expected it to drop. It didn't drop, it got stronger. Then we got a revised weather forecast. They announced a gale warning. That explained it. Too bad they couldn't have done that about two hours previously, before we got 15 miles north. No way to beat back to Sydney then, or even into Pittwater easily. We just carried on.

It blew all day and we stormed north. Then the sun went down and it got dark, really dark, no moon, and the wind picked up. We saw 48 knots several times and the boat surfed up into the 10's pretty often. I recorded 10.66. That's fast for just a reefed sail.
We ran off a little. This took us offshore, into the East Coast Current. It runs south, against us. We averaged 9 knots through the water but we were only going 7.5 over the bottom. Still fast though. We were making time, if not having fun.

Even in these conditions the boat took care of itself, we just sort of rode along, watching for ships, waiting for the wind to go down. Wishing for the wind to go down. We weren't having any problems, but going 9 and 10 knots wasn't relaxing. The noise is what gets you. First it is the wind. The wind howls. Then there is the sound of the water. At 10 knots this boat digs a big hole and throws a huge wave out either side. All that water moving around makes a sound like a waterfall. Constantly. Also you can hear the breakers coming, They roar and they hit the side of the boat with a thump and a cloud of spray envelops you. When you hear that roar, and then the thump, you duck.

June 7,

By daylight the wind was down to 20 and our speed was off to 7.8. That's OK. Life is a lot better at 7.8. I made some coffee and watched the sun come up.

By noon the wind was just about gone, and what there was came in from the north, right against us. Not enough to sail on either. So we dropped the sails and started motoring. A school of dolphins came alongside and escorted us for a while. We motored in by the shore to get out of the current.

Can't say I think much of the weather forecasting around here. Yesterday they said 20-30 and it blew 48. Today they are still saying 20-30, and it is only 6. The forecast for tomorrow is 20-30. I wonder what we'll get tomorrow?

June 8,

With dawn the second day came a new wind. It was a sudden gust which heeled the boat as I was making coffee. I went on deck to investigate and I found a cold, damp, 15 knot breeze blowing from the land. Most offshore breezes you get in the morning are warm, earthy. I wondered where this wind originated. It chilled me, like it came from a graveyard, but with it we could sail. When we trimmed in our speed went back to seven knots from our motoring rate of six, and we thought we might make the tide at Yamba.

We did make the tide and we came over the Clarence River bar at 9:00 on Monday and motored into Yamba, though not without a little drama. The chart showed a channel, which after some discussion, we followed. It was wrong. Too shallow. We ran into the mud and were lucky to get off since the falling tide would have left us there for the day had we not freed ourselves right away. I guess the chart makers and the weather forecasters have something in common. Then we took the alternate path, which Judy had endorsed from the beginning. This one worked, and soon we were tied up at berth C11 in the Yamba Marina.

This is nice. It is warmer than Sydney, and a lot quieter. The boat doesn't move at the dock. Now we'll organize a haul-out and prepare to go overseas.

Click here for another version of this story

Click here for the photos from this day

Fred & Judy, SV WINGS, Yamba

June 6, 2002-Departing Sydney Austraila

Not A Nice Morning

It was like we hooked onto an out-of-control, unstoppable, railway train when we passed Sydney Heads outbound on that June day in 2002 and found 40kts of cold hard off-shore wind blowing us north. In that breeze all we could do is hang on for dear life and wonder. “How did this happen?” There was no going back.

How did this happen indeed?

Blame it on the Aussie weather forecasters: Their recorded message for the previous 12 hours was for moderate winds, 10-15 knots, and we believed it.

Fools ‘R’ Us.

Now we know better but not back then. The blokes from down under must issue their forecasts in the evening, put it on automatic, and go home. Overnight the conditions might change but nobody at Bureau of Meteorology is paying attention.

So that morning we made our departure decision on bad data. By 09:00 we were two hours out of port and still hearing the same obsolete forecast on the radio. I wondered, “Why don’t these guys just look out the window?”

Actually they did just that: As soon as they got to work, drank their morning coffee, read the paper, and finally sat their lard asses down at their desks; they realized that it was blowin’ 40kts not 15kts and likely to get worse. They updated the forecast. “Heavy Westerlies to 45 knots with higher gusts this morning, easing tomorrow”. Now they tell us!

But by then the train was out of the station already and we were flying low, with less chance of getting free than of stopping a runaway engine. We had just a reefed main and the wind vane was doing it’s best to cope and barely managing and the boat speeds were in the nines. In our foulies we shivered in that cold blast and looked out under a dark grey sky that gave a little too much drama to the scene, as if we needed more drama, and we blessed the flat seas. Thank God for that small favor. But we shook our heads; this is not the way we wanted to start our passage to New Cal.

And it didn’t actually start that way if you consider the pleasant morning we had before hitting the ocean. Casting off from our berth in Pyrmont may at 07:00 and under the Sydney Harbor Bridge by 07:30 we had glorious, if admittedly cool, weather and in the bright sun we reveled in the conditions, were optimistic, blissful, happy to be underway again after two years in Australia, while charging into the maelstrom.

The logbook records the cold hard facts:

Logbook:
June 6.
0705 departing Syd, No change to the weather forcast this morning. last night's forcast was for moderate conditions. Conditions beautiful in the harbor, clear skies, nice breeze, but cool.

0820 At Sydney Heads: "We got a bit of wind here" we noted, 33kts from the W COG 27 SOG 8.42. We dropped the jib, then reefed.

0900 35-40 knots of true wind, we're going 9+ and this lasted 24 hours. Oh, at 0900 the Aussie weather guys finally noted that there were going to be strong winds. Thanks guys, we're already in the ocean 4 miles north of Sydney!

When we got into more wind outside the Harbor we reefed the main and waited for the wind to drop. “It’s just the wind funneling out through the Heads” I said, still believing the radio. “It’ll soon be down.”

Instead it got stronger; all day and all night.

Logbook:
21:00 "Dirty Night, black as can be, tons of wind".

Oh Yeah, remember this?

Somehow over the long months of working in Australia and dreaming of those sailing days as we wished them to be, not how they really, too often, are we forgot what cruising is really like. Some how we gotten it into our heads that sailing was going to be like the magazines: easy and carefree. Actually it’s often scary and cold and wet and hard work. Reality hit us in the face like the bright sun we had that morning. This isn’t that much fun.

But still we roared on, what choice did we have?

The wind was on the beam and the waves too, but the waves were small: no fetch. However after dropping the jib I wondered if we’d have problems with the unbalanced rig, main and no jib, in the beam wind, but the boat handled it fine. I marveled at how well the rudder and that strong stainless steel wonder on the back, the Monitor wind vane, were holding us, dealing with the overpowering conditions. I was glad for a big, powerful, spade.

I don’t say we relaxed, but at least we weren’t in fear for our lives. We settled down and waited for an easing of the conditions, which never came, but we didn’t panic.

And we did knock off the miles on that trip: Twenty four hours later we’d covered 175 miles even against the Southward flowing East Coast Current. Did we like it? During the day it was simply a fast ride we’d rather not be taking. At night it was dark, loud, and scary but we carried on, and didn’t turn in until Yamba. And no, we didn’t like it.

But we got through it.

Fred & Judy, S/V Wings, Australia

Click here for the photos from this day

Click here for the orginal version of this story

Jan 12, 2002 The Volvo's Are Coming

It isn't quite like the America's Cup in Auckland, but the Volvo Ocean Race Village in Sydney is finally getting to be a busy place. Two weeks ago when the world circling Volvo Ocean Race boats left South Africa for Sydney there wasn't anything here at the village site but a grassy park. In fact the boats were well on their way before any work was started here in at all. Now, after a fury of building activity there is a whole complex of team bases, haulout facilities, race headquarters, a media center, and the usual cafe's and pubs the spring up when a big sailing event is coming to town.
The Volvo Ocean Race is a 'round the world race with several stops for fully crewed 60 foot sailboats. The race is well covered and you can see photos and stories on the internet, or at least you could, at http://www.volvooceanrace.org/homepage.html. Here in Sydney Australia, their second stopover, the race village has been set up right where we have Wings moored, at the Pyrmont Bay Marina. We had to move our boat slightly to make room for the racers. The first ones are expected on December 3 or 4th, last I heard, and they are going to be tired sailors after roaring neck and neck around the Southern Ocean at fantastic speeds.
Since we are still living ashore while we finish the refurb project on Wings the commotion at the dock won't disturb us too much, but even the apartment is close. We can look out our window and see when the race boats are in the slips.
Speaking of the refurbishment, it is going well, if slower than we'd hoped. Right now the interior is getting new varnish, the deck is going back together, and the new cabin sole is being made in a suburb nearby. Maybe we'll have it all back together by mid December and be sailing again.

Wings'cabin after the refit..

The Nav Station...

Ready to go...

We are also getting closer to the Dec 26 start of the Sydney Hobart sailboat race. Fred is sailing this big event on Icon, but Judy is flying to Hobart to join in the fun down there without the necessity of a likely rough crossing of the Bass Strait. We were on Icon yesterday at her berth in Sydney, and Jim and Robin and mate Ev have made a lot of progress getting her ready.
Finally, since we know most of you are in the middle of a cold winter in the northern hemisphere, we thought we include a photo of the Jacaranda trees which dot the scenery here in Australia each Spring, which is the season here now.

Fred & Judy, SV WINGS, Sydney

Sydney Australia

Jacaranda Trees In Sydney Australia
wingssail-Fredrick Roswold

Apartment Living

Yes, we moved ashore, bought a little furniture from IKEA, put some cushions from WINGS on the floor, and settled in for a period of city life.
wingssail-Fredrick Roswold

October 22, 2001-Boaters Ashore

We have been living ashore for three months now, can you believe it? But just to put your minds at ease, this pair of dedicated boaters haven't gotten far from the water. We have an apartment which overlooks the commercial Port of Sydney.

We don't see the sailboat racing fleet, that is farther out in the western portions of the harbor, and we can't see the Opera House, which is behind the buildings of downtown. What a view of the Sydney Skyline from our Sydney ...

But we can see, however, the comings and goings of container ships, cruise ships, and various freighters and harbor traffic. We can look up from whatever we are doing at almost any time and see some big ship moving out our window. Tight quarters for a cruise ship. This was our vie... Sometimes it looks like one of the buildings is underway. Above the short stretch of water between us and the container terminal we look into the glass and steel office towers of Sydney's downtown.

Hardly a day goes by when we don't look at these buildings and wonder if we are going to next see an airliner fly into one of them. Then we wonder when the US war on terrorism is going to achieve some success, even if it is only the tokenism of capturing or killing Osama. So there is still a residual impact on us from September 11. But we carry on.

Out apartment also looks down on the marina where Wings is berthed.

Sydney Superyacht Center Marina. This is where WIN...

We can see it clearly, and with binoculars we can almost be on board. Every weekend, and on some evenings or mornings, we walk to the boat and work on the boat project. It is slow going, but we are finally making good progress. Now we are putting things back together down below (after painting) and on the deck. Today we sent off about four dozen pieces of deck hardware to have them reannodized, which we hope will turn the pitted, corroded, and paint smeared aluminun parts back into attractive shiney black ones. In a week or two we'll have winches, tracks, and blocks again, which means we'll be able to sail the boat again. We need to, it's been too long.

We need to do some sail repair, and maybe even make a new one, and we need to replace some ropes, the stereo, a pump or two, etc, etc etc. Money will be a limiting factor, as it always is, but we'll prioritize and get by.

We figure that the Wings will be in better shape after this project than it has been since we got it in 1986, so that will be good.

One thing we haven't started to do is to figure out what portion of our junk we will put back aboard and what we will get rid of. We also don't know what to do with the stuff we are getting rid of. There isn't much of a boating public here in Sydney to sell used stuff to, and no big swap meets to go to. But we are still hoping to shed a couple of thousand pounds, so we have to try to find a home for it, to say nothing picking which pieces of junk to leave behind and which to keep.


Another decision we have to make is where to go when we get the boat finished. Rgith now we don''t think we'd like to go to Indonesia. Maybe not Thailand either. Probably, next July, when we are ready to leave, we'll back to the towards the Pacific Islands, to Vanautu and new Caledonia. Maybe back to Fiji as well. We also are thinking about the Philippines, Hong Kong, and China. As much as Europe lures us, we are not yet ready to leave the Pacific.
But one thing is for sure. We are still cruising. This time in Sydney is just temporary.

DAWN IN SYDNEYI got up early to do some work and watch the dawn of a new day. It was beautiful to see the sky first turn a rusty purple, then red, then finally see the sun come up over the Sydney skyline. And since it was morning and my mind was fresh, I did some good work on the project plans I had laid out on the the table. It was peaceful and beautiful on that morning, and Judy missed it by sleeping in a little longer (in the bed of boat cushions on the floor of our small aprtment).


THE DAY THE REFER DIED.The boat project has marked the passing of our trusty referigerator. For 14 years this old second hand $25 refer served us well, despite chronic shaking and bouts of seasickness, and it's loyalty earned it a permenant place on the boat, even though we knew we could easily get a younger, stronger, replacement at West Marine.
But after the boat was in the shed in Noake's boatyard, when we got it back to our marina berth, we found the refer silent, and by then it was beyond resusitation. So with an emotional ceremony, we carted the remains off to the dumpster. I guess in the future we'll miss the gentle tinkle of wine glasses and rattle of the stove top that meant that the refer was running and keeping our beer cold. Bye, loyal friend.

Fred & Judy, SV WINGS, Sydney

Dec. 18, 2000-Another Race Trophy

Warrior (more recent photo)

Today Warrior conceded that Wings was the winner of the Wings Blue Ribbon Race to Australia, and presented a bottle of Bundaberg Rum to us. Hooray! Well, racing sometimes can be fun, and the impromptu race we sailed from New Caledonia to Australia was one of those fun ones. Warrior made the initial challenge and Wings accepted. The rules were simple, any course, any departure date, any destination as long as it was in Oz, and the fastest average speed under PHRF handicaps over the passage to Oz was the winner. Other boats silently joined in and off we all went.

wingssail images-fredrick roswold

Sandy & Lloyd Banta

Wings had a great passage, as we said before, and we clearly beat all the boats near us, but we never saw Warrior, and all we heard was that they really took off, leaving the boats near them in their dust. So until we caught up with Lloyd and Sandy in the boat yard in Mooloolaba we didn't know how well they actually did, but we suspected they had really clobbered us. Not so! When we got together and compared times we knew it was going to be close, they finished just 45 minutes ahead us. Lloyd scored the finishes on his computer, and although they sailed a longer course to Brisbane, on corrected time we just nipped them. Our average speed was 7.22 knots, theirs (on corrected time) was 7.19; that's close! The payoff was prompt and with our bottle of rum in hand we invited them over to Wings to share it.

wingssail images-fredrick roswold

Old Blue's Last Day

The trip to Mooloolaba ended with a great spinnaker run down the coast, some super speeds, great rock on the stereo, and a little hard stuff out of the bottle, and it all ended with a shredded spinnaker. Yep! We blew out old blue, our favorite 22 year old 3/4 oz. spinnaker. In a big gust it just went away, pulled a Cayard. We knew the cloth was getting tired, in fact it was rotten, so it is no more. When we got into the marina we just dropped it in the dumpster. But never mind, we have four others.

Now we are waiting for a good weather pattern to head off to Sydney. It will be hard to leave Mooloolaba. This wonderful beach town has everything, tons of sunshine, a great beach, shopping that can't be beat, and a sailing program that looks really fun. But we've set our sights on Sydney, and Mooloolaba will still be here if we want to come back later, so we have made up our minds, we will leave soon. But then... we need northerly winds and the forecast is for southerly winds So if you hear from us next week and we haven't left, don't worry, this is a nice place to be stuck.

Click here for some more photos of the trip to Mooloolaba

Click here to see the hardcopy log of the trip (race)

Click here to see the hard copy log of our sail to Mooloolaba


Fred & Judy SV Wings, Mooloolaba, Australia

Nov. 14, 2000-Tradewinds to Australia

wingssail images-fredrick roswold

Wings in New Cal

It took us two tries to make it out of New Caledonia.

After the wind-up of the Pacific Arts Festival the 300 cruising boats in Port Moselle started looking at departure dates for leaving New Caledonia. For most, including Wings, the next destination was going to be Australia, and, as the season was advancing, we were all itching to go. Boat projects were hurried along, provisions taken aboard and the weather was checked and checked again.

Even then many of us got it wrong.

The winds had been westerly and we needed SE for an easy passage to Australia. On Wednesday, November 8, the wind was still westerly but with a decent but not definitive weather forecast for SE winds the next day, the herd mentality took over as crews around the harbor who heard that others were keen to go in the morning decided that it was time for themselves as well. A rush of boats, Wings among them, departed Thursday morning and many were soon heading east across the lagoon for Passe Dumbea. Before long this fleet encountered strong westerly winds, squalls, and heavy rain instead of the Southeast Trades which were hoped for. It seemed that a pesky low had developed overnight just southeast of Noumea and we were getting the clockwise wind on the back side of it. In the hurry to get underway that morning few had looked carefully at the new weather information we had available and now we were paying the price for this haste. Motoring towards the pass boats were bucking and slamming into a sharp chop with rain and wind whistling through the rigging. The ocean outside the pass looked rough.

We turned back before reaching the pass. It was one of the rare times when we’ve turned back in the face of bad weather and it was a tough decision, particularly since Sandy & Lloyd Banta, on Warrior, with whom we had an informal race to Australia, were going on, but we didn’t see the point of heading out to beat ourselves up in rough conditions and contrary winds. That night, back in port, we felt good about our decision as we listened on the SSB radio to the boats which had carried on complain about their wind conditions. Meanwhile the weather office confidently stated that Friday morning the wind would finally go SE. We prepared to get underway again Friday, never mind the old superstition about the bad luck of leaving on a Friday.

So, on Friday we set out again and this time we had favorable winds. With a good heading and a number 4 jib we were soon reaching to the SW. Saturday and Sunday passed with steady breeze and we made good speed. By Monday we started thinking that this was probably going to be one fast trip; we continued to experience ideal conditions with southeast trade winds at 15 to 25, reasonably smooth seas and clear sunny skies. It was beautiful sailing and we were going like crazy on a beam reach with a full main and #4 headsail, doing over 7.0 knots continuously. We logged a noon to noon run of over 170 miles, a very nice distance for us, and by Tuesday we’d averaged 7.75 for a couple of days, making a run of 187 miles. Our destination was Bundaberg, Australia but we jibed and headed a little north of the rhumb line and we found better wind than the other boats traveling the same route more to the south. We were optimistic about our chance of beating Warrior’s time. The next day we logged 186 miles.

Besides being fast, this passage was easy, not too windy or rough, few sail changes, few squalls or rain, just lots of rest and reading, and a full moon at night to make the night watches easier.

This is how passage making ought to be.

We finished off the trip with one squally night as we approached the Australian coast. Surfing in south of the Great Barrier Reef we reduced sail to arrive at Bundaberg at dawn. In four days and 21.5 hours we covered the 800 mile distance that had been estimated by the majority of the cruising fleet as being a five to eight day passage. We wondered how Warrior had done.

While we enjoyed the sail we were also happy to be in Australia. Australia! We'd arrived in the land of Ayers Rock and Alice Springs, of 'Roos and Wallabies, and Dancin' Matilda. This is an exciting landfall for us and we can hardly wait to get ashore and look around.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Bundaberg, Australia

Click here to see more photos.

Click here to see the hardcopy log of the trip