Crew: Geoff, Grant, Murray, Malcolm.
SailGP is coming to New Zealand this year with the big F50 cats racing in Lyttleton Harbour. When we heard that the Island Cruising Association was organising a rally of boats to sail there to watch the racing we jumped at the opportunity!
Another Wellington boat Bellatrix, a Beale 33 skippered by Irene Muirhead, was also in the rally and we agreed to sail down to Lyttleton together. I worked out a sail route and conservatively estimated that if we departed Wellington at 8am we would arrive in Lyttleton by 5pm the next day. We just needed the right weather conditions. Using all the forecasts including Predictwind Departure Planning, Metservice etc., we eventually settled on Tuesday 7th which would give us favourable winds for the two day passage.
Grant, Murray and Malcolm joined me on Halo at Chaffers early Tuesday morning and we cast off at 0800 hrs for our big adventure. We hoisted the Island Cruising flag and did our trip report to Maritime Radio. A beautiful calm morning in Wellington Harbour with practically no wind as we motored into the glare of the rising sun.
Once we rounded Pt Halswell the wind picked up to a nice 10kts from the north. Bellatrix departed from Seaview a bit later and they were just visible in the distance behind us as we sailed out through Wellington Heads with No. 2 Jib and full mainsail in a fast broad reach.
We then set our course for Cape Campbell. The wind came up to about 15 kts and we were able to pole out the jib and enjoy great downwind sailing doing around 7 kts. We connected up ‘Ernesto’ our trusty Simrad 22 auto tiller so we could take a break from helming. The southerly swell died out and was replaced by a rather lumpy northerly sea state.
After enjoying slices of Graciela’s homemade pizza for lunch we passed Cape Campbell at 1420 hrs, already one hour ahead of our schedule. Our 4 on 2 off watch system worked quite well with a freshly rested crew member coming on watch every two hours throughout the voyage.
The northerly continued to build which brought a fairly strong swell from behind. Gave us some good surfing speeds but we eventually had to resort to manual steering as ‘Ernesto’ was struggling a bit.
At one stage we were joined by a pod of beautiful dolphins. Malcolm managed to get some good shots.
Grant served up a great dahl for dinner as the sun was setting behind the Kaikōura mountain range. Unfortunately Malcolm and I were feeling somewhat queasy and were unable to do much justice to Grant’s culinary creation.
As the evening set in, the full moon rose behind us giving an eerie glow over the ocean. We were getting great speeds up to over 8 kts at times.
Every hour the crew filled in the logbook recording position, weather, fuel tank, engine hours, house battery volts etc.
We sailed past Kaikōura at 2230 hrs. No sign of any whales 🙂 but could see Bellatrix and a boat called Boris on the AIS which we later found out was a barge going to Lyttleton as part of the SailGP preparations. By now we were two hours ahead of schedule.
At day break we were sailing past Motunau Island still goose-winged with the jib poled out. It had cooled right down and we all had to put on our heavy jackets.
We were greeted by glorious orange skies in the east as the sun rose.
It then took us a rather gruelling six hours to cross the huge Pegasus Bay. The wind was dropping but still with rough seas and having to motor at times.
At 1300 hrs the massive cliffs of Godley Head came into view and we navigated our way through a bunch of ships anchored outside Lyttleton Harbour.
Malcolm pointed out the WWII gun emplacements on the top of the cliffs which used to protect the harbour from enemy ships.
We entered Lyttelton harbour under motor following the shipping channel and called Matt, the Te Ana Marina manager, to let him know our arrival was imminent. It was surprisingly hot and humid in Lyttleton and we soon stripped down to shorts and tee shirts.
After locating our berth we finally tied up at 1430 hrs, 2.5 hours ahead of schedule. We made it!
We set up Halo’s sun canopy and cockpit table and enjoyed a celebratory drink.
Total trip 177.66 nautical miles, time enroute 33:31 hours.
Diesel consumption 26 Lt, engine hours 15. (1.7 Lt/Hr).
Halo Log Book 