Around NZ

[Peter B]

Are we/you there yet..?

 

[darkside]

Left Gisborne this morning. Easy run around East Cape and across the Bay of Plenty.
We ran close to Whakari White Island. You can easily see the helicopter abandoned in the rescue after the eruption.
Quite deep approaching White.
Anchored at Mayor Island for the night.
Virtually home now, we will head on into Auckland over the weekend.

 

[darkside]

Left Mayor after all the game fishing boats and headed to Whitianga for the last fuel before home.
Excellent bottlenose dolphin display including leaps to near cabin top height.
Went passed Cathedral Cove and anchored at Opito bay for lunch.
Will head over to Great Mercury for the night.

 

[klee wyck]

Nice! Closing in on completion of the circumnavigation.
Dolphin displays never get old for us, just as much fun every time.

 

[Kit_L]

Closing in indeed. Your overall impressions of the vessel from whatever perspective you feel like talking about will be most welcome, Ross. We love dolphins too, Klee (just saw a fairy penguin dive under my boat as I docked at the marina!).

Cheers to all.

 

[darkside]

Circumnavigation of New Zealand completed.
Left Great Mercury and spent the night at Oneroa on Waiheke Island for a celebration ashore.
Back into our slip this morning after the final fuel up for the trip.
2871nm in a little over 7 weeks with about a week off the boat or waiting for weather.
Underway we averaged around 16kn for the passages and 8kn around Fiordland sight seeing for 2.5l/nm overall fuel burn.
The boat worked really well. To leave again tomorrow we would need an oil change and a new AIS transmitter. That's it.

 

[BruceK]

Congratulations. Thanks for taking us along.

 

[Insequent]

Well done, and thanks for letting us tag along vicariously!
Nice economy for that speed.

I'm curious as to whether you now have any feedback to Roger on his design? Would there be anything that you would do different if starting again with what you now know?

 

[klee wyck]

Great trip. Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[Kit_L]

Sincerely, thanks for sharing that trip with us. What a feat! and 2.5l/nm is great consumption for that speed, I think. Love the Ahi T-shirts, too!

 

[Jeff F]

It's been marvelous following.

For those that missed it, the story starts here https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62205


I'm really interested in design and decisions and use case. Thanks for sharing. It's nice to get the end-to-end story as it unfolds.

 

[darkside]

Thanks everyone. Very satisfying to finish in good shape.
Clearly more time would be better, but time constraints are our reality for now.
We wouldn't change anything on the hulls or layout. Long skinny hulls are hard to steer and small rudders optimized for 17kn don't help.
Because of that she can be a handful in a breaking following sea. You have to hand steer, or maybe I'm just not that great at tuning the autopilot.
She can also be amazing into a modest head sea up to say 1m where she just glides, way better than I expected for the length.
We never had green water over the bow, plenty of reserve buoyancy even when running heavy.
We only got one go/no go decision wrong, from Doubtful down to Dusky, on Christmas Day. Only three hours but really we should have waited.
You probably don't need two mechanical injection engines with keel protected props but it's great for peace of mind.
We managed to fix the few things that needed on the engines but no doubt access is tight.
Starlink is sensational.
LiFePo4 batteries with big alternators are also a game changer.
I really like the Excel anchor.

 

[Jeff F]

Long skinny hulls are hard to steer and small rudders optimized for 17kn don't help.
Because of that she can be a handful in a breaking following sea. You have to hand steer, or maybe I'm just not that great at tuning the autopilot.

I'm curious about advantages/risks in speeding up in those conditions. Sorry if it was discussed. Maybe this is just a marker for a new thread.

 

[klee wyck]

Y'all ok down there? Looks like pretty tough conditions in your neighborhood. I hope all is well and that recovery is swift.

 

[darkside]

Yeah it's been very wet, but winds no more than 40kn in most places. I understand one of our recent staff members lost his house in a low lying area in Auckland.
The boats on river moorings took a bit of a beating.
We are fine so far but more rain to come mid week apparently.

 

[Kit_L]

Re. the boats on river moorings: it's the debris that will come down the river you have to watch out for—we took literally tonnes of wood (some trunks really long and heavy) off our two mooring lines after the last flood. We'll move the boat beforehand with the next one to a safe spot we have found since then

 

[Southern Boater]

Great cruising story DS, must be a great sense of personal achievement, well done…..

 

[Southern Boater]

………..I really like the Excel anchor.

Same here, I used to look for sandy patches to drop the old Manson plough, and even that was hit and miss, but the Sarca Excel gets dropped anywhere these days and grabs instantly.

 

[Jeff F]

Just tangentially, 34 sailboats racing 2 handed around the north Island.
https://www.ssanz.co.nz/rni2023/

I have a boat that would be quite capable for a race like that. If NZ were closer I'd donate it to some keeners around there!

Cheers.

 

[darkside]

Some familiar names in the starters. Tom and Vicky Jackson have over 200000 ocean sailing miles and have lived aboard for 40 or more years.

 

[Jeff F]

I'm sure 1/2 the country is tuned in. I love NZ.