South Island Rally – Back Home to Wellington 23-24 March 2023

Crew: Geoff, Peter, Malcom, Scott.

After the excitement of the SailGP racing in Lyttleton we planned to sail back north on the Monday together with some of the other boats in the Island Cruising Association South Island Rally. This plan was thwarted however by a big weather system which came in bringing cold gale force southerlies to the motu.

The forecasts were indicating we wouldn’t be able to depart until Thursday so Peter, Malcolm and I decided to head for the hills. Peter knew a family friend with a bach at Arthurs Pass so we booked the shuttle bus for Monday morning. We had a lovely drive up the Waimakariri river valley and into the hills at Arthur’s Pass Village. We enjoyed some walks around the area and relaxing in the bach.

We returned to Lyttleton on Wednesday afternoon refreshed and ready for the big trip sailing back to Wellington. Scott Sutherland from Christchurch, who has recently bought a Whiting 29 called Band Wagon, was keen to build up his coastal sailing experience and he would join us for the trip.

The Metservice coastal forecasts for Conway and Cook were looking good for Thursday and Friday and according to the Predictwind Departure Planning app we could expect good weather with mainly tail breezes for the trip.

On Thursday we awoke to a beautiful morning in Lyttelton’s Te Ana Marina. Malcolm and Peter dashed up to the Lyttleton Coffee Company for one last infusion of their superb coffees while I had a final look at the weather forecasts, loaded the route plan into OpenCPN, finished preparing the boat and did a safety briefing with Scott.

We slipped our lines at Te Ana Marina at 0800 hrs and logged our trip report to Maritime Radio on the VHF. With Scott on helm we hoisted the No. 2 Jib with full mainsail and headed out into the morning sun. Bye-bye Lyttleton – it’s been great!

At 0900 hrs we left the harbour passing by Godley Head. We noticed a number of ships once again anchored at the harbour entrance. A few other South Island Rally boats including Boris on Tonnant and Irene on Bellatrix had left Lyttleton earlier that morning and we were able to track them on AIS as we headed north into Pegasus Bay.

We soon had a nice breeze from the south to fill our sails and we rigged up the spinnaker pole to sail ‘goose-winged’ with an average boat speed of 6.5 knots. Champagne sailing!

As we cruised up the coast past Point Gibson the wind eased off and we dropped the jib and motor sailed for a while. With the nice swells and light breeze behind us we were averaging 7 kts. Each hour we recorded our speed, position, engine hours, fuel and battery levels in the logbook. The breeze came back up at about 1600 hrs so we were able to turn off the engine and hoist the jib again as we sailed into the afternoon and later enjoyed a wonderful dinner pre-prepared by Scott.

Suddenly the VHF burst into life, ‘Halo, Halo, Halo this is Maritime Radio. Your PLB has been activated. Are you OK?‘ Ooops. We went up to Ch. 67 and I explained that yes we were fine and that the PLB which I have attached to my life jacket had inadvertently activated. (I have since learned that the PLB model I have, a ResQLink 400, has been recalled. On arrival in Wellington, Elliot at Barton Marine has now provided me with a replacement unit with an improved safety lock).

We passed Kaikōura Peninsula at 2200 hrs and observed the lights of the town illuminating the sky. We were visited by a pod of dolphins during the night. Eerie as these beautiful creatures bumped and snorted their way around our boat in the dark.

We each were able to get some sleep with our 4-on 2-off watch system. As the sky in the east slowly started to get lighter we enjoyed watching the beautiful sunrise.

At 0700 hrs we passed Cape Campbell and motor sailed into the southern end of Cook Strait with the Remutakas and the hills of Wellington just visible in the distance. The wind eventually died out altogether before turning to the light northerly as forecast. We had fun surfing the big southerly swells on our starboard quarter as a pod of about 15 common dolphins escorted us.

As we neared Wellington Harbour entrance we were pushing against the outgoing tide. We motor sailed past Barrett Reef Buoy at 1220 hrs just behind Bellatrix.

Murray took a nice photo of us sailing on a beam reach past Pt Jerningham with the 15 kts northerly wind.

We finally arrived at Chaffers Marina at 1338 hrs. Dockmaster Chris was there to help with the lines and Jenny turned up with some welcome coffees for a tired but happy crew. We made it!