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,During the night of 2 August there was a massive blow in Auckland causing quite a bit of havoc ashoreincluding fallen trees and downedpower lines. I recall lying in bed listening to the gusts thankful not to be out on our boat.

Hobsonville marina emailed us the next day advising of gusts up to 67 knots in the marina with some vessels suffering damage to canopies and hatches. Di and I went thereto check on Rapport, fortunatelyfinding everything was fine.

Sir Peter Blake’s former 36 metre alloy expedition yacht Seamaster, now called Archangel, which has been anchored for a long time off St Heliers Beach dragged her anchor, but fortunately beached withapparently no damage. Her current owner says Archangel had a heavy anchor and 100 metres of chain out, but there are two issues of interest here:

1. Her owner was not aboard, but able to tell remotely that Archangelhad dragged and therefore able to go and investigate. I don’t know what technology the owner was using, but see our lastposting re Anchor Watch HD as it shows how valuable this free app canbe.

2. Her owner says Archangel dragged her anchor due to a 180 degree wind shift. This is a point I have mentioned many times, that is with adequate ground tackle set (as Archangel had) you are most unlikely to drag in a consistent wind. However when you encounter a 180 degree wind shift – which often happens during storms and/or as fronts pass through, all bets are off. This is because your boat’s movement following the wind shift can pull your anchor out from its set position and just drag it across the seabed. In other cases as your chain moves in the opposite direction it mayfoul the anchor and drag it across the seabed preventingit from resetting.

But wait there’s more. You have almost certainly anchored on a weather shore, that is with your bow pointing to the shore and no matter how hard the wind blows you are unlikely to see wavelets more than about 25cm high. After the wind shift you will be on a lee shore, that is with your stern pointing to shore and in shallower water. Now the wind has much greater distance to create waves and these can quickly rise to a metre or more. Waves cause a jerking motion placing further strain on your anchor and compromising your security.

Lesson: a 180 degree wind shift is always a case for concern and for close monitoring of your situation.

,During
the night of 2 August there was a massive blow in Auckland causing
quite a bit of havoc ashore
including fallen trees and downed
power lines. I
recall lying in bed listening to the gusts thankful not to be out on
our boat.

Hobsonville
marina emailed us the next day advising of gusts up to 67 knots in
the marina with some vessels suffering damage to canopies and
hatches. Di and I went there
to check on Rapport, fortunately
finding everything was fine.

Sir
Peter Blake’s former 36
metre alloy
expedition
yacht Seamaster, now called Archangel, which has been anchored for a
long time off St Heliers Beach dragged her anchor, but fortunately
beached with
apparently no
damage. Her
current owner says Archangel had a heavy anchor and 100 metres of
chain out, but
there
are two issues of interest here:

1.
Her owner was not aboard, but able to tell remotely that Archangel
had dragged and therefore able to go and investigate. I don’t know
what technology the
owner
was using,
but see our
last
posting re Anchor Watch HD as it shows how valuable this free app can
be.

2.
Her owner says Archangel dragged her
anchor due
to a 180 degree wind shift. This is a point I have mentioned many
times, that is with adequate ground tackle set (as Archangel had) you
are most unlikely to drag in a consistent wind. However when you
encounter a 180 degree wind shift – which often happens during
storms and/or as fronts pass through, all bets are off. This is
because your boat’s movement following the wind shift can pull your
anchor out from its set position and just drag it across the seabed.
In other cases as
your chain
moves in
the opposite direction it may
foul the anchor and
drag it
across the seabed preventing
it from
resetting.

But
wait there’s more. You have almost certainly anchored on a weather
shore, that is with your bow pointing to the shore and no matter how
hard the wind blows you are unlikely to see wavelets more than about
25cm high.
After the wind shift you will be on a lee shore, that is with your
stern pointing to shore and in shallower water. Now the wind has much
greater distance to create waves and these can quickly rise to a
metre or more. Waves cause a jerking motion placing further strain on
your anchor and compromising your security.

Lesson:
a 180 degree wind shift is always a case for concern and for close
monitoring of your situation.

 Here’s an edited version of an article to appear in Pacific PowerBoat’s next issue.

FOUR GREAT PRODUCTS TOENHANCE WINTER CRUISING – AND ONE’S FREE!

We really enjoy our winter cruising, but when it’sdark from before 1800hrs until first light arrives about 0700 the dynamics are quite different to summer cruisingwhen we’re still on the beach or BBQing until much later. These four products have helped keep us safe, warm and entertained during those 13 hours of darkness aboard Rapport.

See the light– Techlight hand-held spot

In days gone by our hand-held lights were usuallya 12 volt spotlight with a halogen bulb connected through a cigarette lighter socket anda trusty battery powered Dolphin . Whenusing these duringnight searches as Coastguard volunteers we often found the boat’s wiring to the power socket was too light for sustained use of the spotlight, due to the heat generated, while the Dolphinhad limited range and runtime plusexpensive batteries to replace. Also if the Dolphin hadn’t been used for a while we needed to remove and replace the (same) battery, presumably to provide a better connection. 

But a technical revolution has been occurring during the last 15 years or so not only with LED bulbs, that provide brighter light, give a higher quality beam and consume less power, but with rechargeable lithium batteries that continue to improve as well as becoming lower cost. I can distinctly recall when I first became seriously aware of this. Technical guru Chris aka MacGyver, our most frequent visitor to Envoy made his first visit in late 2010. We were sitting in the cockpit after sunset in a bay near Bodrum when Chris showed me a black aluminium flashlight about 130mm long, with an LED bulb and powered by a rechargeable lithium battery. This compact light easily illuminated trees on the foreshore, which I guess was about 250 metres away. By comparison the light from my largest flashlight – a clunky unit with 4 x D cell batteries and conventional bulb couldn’t even reach the shore. Flashlights using conventional dry cell batteries lose their brightness early on as the batteries start to lose their charge, however lithium battery powered lights can lose much more charge before their brightness reduces. We now carry one of the new generation MK 7 Dolphins with an LED bulb aboard as one of our low cost general purpose flashlights together with a rugged, no-nonsense looking TeklightST-3329 we bought from Jaycar Electronics for $159. The Techlight has an incredible 480 metre rangeand its 4,500 lumens of light (the Dolphin has 200 lumens) provides amazing brightness. It’s waterproof and floats, has a convenient wrist security strap and its lithium battery pack is rechargeable using either a mains charger orUSB cable, both supplied. Its full power option provides 75 minutes use while its still very bright low power option increases this to 150 minutes. If the proverbial hits the fan the unit can also emit a continuous SOS signal. In essence the Techlight provides the power of a hard wired spotlight with portability and we love it.

User tips: it takes about 40 minutes for human eyes to completely adjust to darkness so using low level red lighting at the helm and reducing brightness on navigation screens helps maintain night vision. Don’t try to use any spotlight through windows and avoid directing the beam on reflective surfaces.

Have we moved – Anchor Watch HD app for devices

When the wind is howling at 40 knots with the boat moving around during squalls as we encountered during early July’s “weather bomb” it can be difficult to tell if your anchor’s dragging during the night, especially as distance is far more difficult to estimate during night time. Most plotters incorporate anchor alarms, but as with our boat these may be on the flybridge and difficult to hear below. Enter Anchor Watch HD – a free app allowing you to maintain anchor watch from below or even while away from your boat.

When you open the app while connected to the internet it shows a Google Earth view of your current location and while Google Earth is not essential to use the system, being able to see your position on a map provides additional reassurance. This view is historical, so boats shown on the map will not be there now. You can change the scale using normal two finger zoom.

After your anchor is set press the anchor button and an anchor icon with an orange circle around it appears at your position. Now while the anchor icon remains in the original anchored position a blue/white/blue circle shows your current position. There are two on screen buttons to the right of the anchor button that increase and decrease the alarm range, which would typically be about 15 metres to allow for some sideways movement. The actual range displays on top centre of screen together with the distance and bearing from your current position to the original anchored position. If your vessel moves outside the set alarm range a volume adjustable (seriously loud at full volume) siren sounds and a dialogue box appears allowing you to ignore the alarm for 30 seconds while you adjust the scale or “raise the anchor”. The app can also send an alarm message by sms or email allowing you to monitor your anchored position while going ashore.

User tips: the app consumes a lot of power so keep your device charging when it’s using this app. Make a note of your GPS position after anchoring so that if you suspect dragging you can compare that with your current GPS position.

Stay warm as toast – Gasmate heater

Even on cold nights,once we start cooking the boat warms up quickly and when using ourgenerator we can also run our 2.4Kw electric fan heater. At other times we use our Gasmate portable heater with its ceramic burner providingan atmospheric warm glow. We bought ours from Bunnings costing $140 and usingdisposable 220gm butane gas canisters costing about $1.40 and lasting about 90 minutes. It’s very safe as a simple lever disconnects the butane cartridge when not in use and gas supply automatically stops if the unit should be accidentally knocked over, the oxygen level becomes too low or the flame goes out. It’s piezo ignition works well and it’s compact and smart with the butane cartridge housed within the casing.

User tip: when using the Gasmate allow some fresh air into your boat and never use it while sleeping.

Gasmate butane cartridge heater and Techlight spotlight

Entertainment during those long nights – RSE Mini-Lite Plus

We promised ourselves our next boat would have Sky TV capability to watch favoritessuch as Super Rugby. When we bought Rapport she already had an Avtex flat screen and a TracVision TV5 satellite dish enabling us to watch free to air TV. Our friend Chris suggested buying anRSE Mini-Lite high definition digital satellite receiver enabling us to plug in our Sky card from home.Theunit is easy to install, attaching to the rear of the flat screen and wired to our AC power supply. It’s performed welland accessesSky channelswherever we are, except for some unknown reason Oneroa.The RSE unit costs $199 and can be bought through RSE in Takanini orproviders of caravan accessories.

User tip: the power to the Mini-Lite and screen must be off beforeyou insert and remove the Sky card. If you don’t do this the Sky card will no longer work until after it’s used again in your box at home.

Enjoy your winter cruising!

 Here’s an edited version
of an article to appear in Pacific PowerBoat’s next issue.

FOUR GREAT
PRODUCTS TO
ENHANCE WINTER CRUISING – AND ONE’S FREE!

We
really enjoy our winter cruising, but
when it’s
dark from before 1800hrs
until first
light arrives about 0700
the
dynamics are quite different to summer cruising
when we’re
still on the beach or BBQing until much later. These four products have helped keep us safe, warm and entertained during
those 13 hours of darkness aboard
Rapport.

See the light
– Techlight hand-held spot

In
days gone by our hand-held lights
were usually
a 12 volt spotlight with a halogen bulb connected through
a cigarette lighter socket and
a trusty battery powered Dolphin . When
using these
during
night searches as
Coastguard volunteers we
often found the boat’s wiring to the power socket was too light for
sustained use of
the spotlight, due to the heat generated, while
the Dolphin
had limited
range and runtime
plus
expensive batteries
to replace.
Also if the Dolphin hadn’t been used for a while we
needed to remove and replace the (same) battery, presumably to provide a
better connection. 

But
a technical
revolution has been occurring during the last 15 years or so not
only with LED bulbs, that provide brighter light, give a higher quality beam and consume less power, but with
rechargeable lithium batteries that continue to improve as well as becoming lower cost. I can distinctly recall
when I first became seriously aware of this. Technical guru Chris aka MacGyver, our most frequent
visitor to Envoy made his first visit in late 2010. We were sitting in the cockpit after sunset in a bay near
Bodrum when Chris showed me a black aluminium flashlight about 130mm
long, with an LED bulb and powered by a rechargeable lithium battery.
This compact light easily illuminated trees on the foreshore, which I
guess was about 250 metres away. By comparison the
light from my
largest flashlight – a
clunky unit with
4 x D cell batteries and conventional
bulb couldn’t even reach the shore. Flashlights using conventional dry cell batteries lose their brightness early on as the batteries start to lose their charge, however lithium battery powered lights can lose much more charge before their brightness reduces. We now carry one of the new generation MK 7 Dolphins with an LED bulb aboard as one of our low cost general purpose flashlights together with a rugged,
no-nonsense looking Teklight
ST-3329 we
bought from Jaycar Electronics for $159.
The
Techlight has an incredible 480
metre range
and its 4,500 lumens of light (the
Dolphin has 200 lumens) provides
amazing brightness. It’s waterproof and floats, has a convenient wrist security strap and its lithium
battery pack is rechargeable using either
a mains charger or
USB cable, both
supplied. Its full power option provides 75 minutes use
while its still very bright low power option increases this to 150
minutes. If the proverbial hits the fan the unit can also emit a continuous SOS signal. In
essence the
Techlight provides the power of a hard wired spotlight with
portability and
we love it.

User
tips: it
takes about 40 minutes for human eyes to completely adjust to darkness so
using low
level red lighting at
the helm and
reducing brightness on navigation
screens
helps
maintain night vision. Don’t try to use any spotlight through windows and avoid directing the beam on reflective surfaces.

Have
we moved – Anchor Watch HD app
for devices

When the wind is howling at 40
knots with the boat moving around during squalls as we encountered
during early July’s “weather bomb” it can be difficult to tell
if your anchor’s dragging during the night, especially as distance is far more difficult to estimate during night time. Most plotters
incorporate anchor alarms, but as with our boat these may be on the
flybridge and difficult to hear below. Enter Anchor Watch HD – a
free app allowing you to maintain anchor watch from below or even
while away from your boat.

When you open the app while
connected to the internet it shows a Google Earth view of your
current location and while Google Earth is not essential to use the
system, being able to see your position on a map provides additional
reassurance. This view is historical, so boats shown on the map will
not be there now. You can change the scale using normal two finger
zoom.

After your anchor is set press the
anchor button and an anchor icon with an orange circle around it appears at
your position. Now while the anchor icon
remains in the original anchored position a blue/white/blue circle
shows your current position. There are two on screen buttons to the
right of the anchor button that increase and decrease the alarm range, which would typically be about 15 metres to allow for some sideways movement. The actual range displays on top
centre of screen together with the distance
and bearing from your current position to the original anchored
position. If your vessel moves outside the set alarm range a volume
adjustable (seriously loud at full volume) siren sounds and a
dialogue box appears allowing you to ignore the alarm for 30 seconds
while you adjust the scale or “raise the anchor”. The app can
also send an alarm message by sms or email allowing you to monitor
your anchored position while going ashore.

User
tips: the app consumes a lot of power so keep your device charging
when it’s using this app. Make a note of your GPS position after anchoring so that if you suspect dragging you can compare that with your current GPS position.

Stay warm as toast – Gasmate
heater

Even
on cold nights,
once we
start cooking the boat warms up quickly and when using our
generator we can also run our 2.4Kw electric fan heater. At
other times we use our Gasmate
portable heater with
its ceramic
burner providing
an atmospheric warm glow.
We bought
ours from
Bunnings costing
$140
and using
disposable
220gm
butane gas
canisters costing
about $1.40 and lasting about 90 minutes. It’s
very safe as
a simple
lever disconnects the
butane
cartridge when not in use and gas
supply automatically
stops if
the unit should be accidentally knocked over, the
oxygen level becomes too low or
the flame
goes out. It’s
piezo
ignition works well and it’s compact
and smart with the butane cartridge housed within the casing.

User
tip: when
using the Gasmate allow
some fresh air into
your boat and never use it while sleeping.

Gasmate butane cartridge heater and Techlight spotlight

Entertainment during those
long nights – RSE Mini-Lite Plus

We promised ourselves our next boat would have Sky TV capability
to watch
favorites
such as Super Rugby.
When we bought Rapport she already had an Avtex flat screen
and a
TracVision
TV5 satellite dish enabling us to watch free to air TV. Our friend Chris suggested buying
an
RSE Mini-Lite high
definition digital
satellite
receiver
enabling
us to plug in our Sky card from home.
The
unit
is
easy
to install, attaching to the rear of the flat screen
and wired
to
our AC
power
supply. It’s
performed well
and
accesses
Sky channels
wherever
we are, except
for some unknown reason Oneroa.
The
RSE unit costs $199 and can be bought through RSE
in Takanini or
providers
of caravan accessories.

User
tip: the power to the Mini-Lite and screen must be off before
you insert and remove the Sky card. If you don’t do this the Sky card will no longer work until after it’s used again in your box at home.

Enjoy
your winter cruising!

 We sold Envoy in late 2019 and her new owners, Larry & Catherine Wood from Queensland, planned to start some cruising in Spring 2020. However the world changed in early 2020 with covid and that plan changed along with it. For one thing G…

 We sold Envoy in late 2019 and her new owners, Larry & Catherine Wood from Queensland, planned to start some cruising in Spring 2020. However the world changed in early 2020 with covid and that plan changed along with it. For one thing G…

I’m always impressed with
people living their adventurous boating dreams in small vessels.

My
younger brother Charles is a yachtsman who’s done lots of daunting
sailing adventures. Among others he cruised from Perth around the
northern coast of Australia to Sydney, sailed from Sydney to Lord
Howe Island and back and then sailed from Brisbane to Scotland via
the Med over
several years while altogether racking up 14
years living
aboard his 34ft van de Statd sloop, Acrobat, with his then partner,
later wife Marie for.

Charles
was our inspiration to embark on our own Med adventures following a
visit to Turkey and
a short
cruise aboard Acrobat. He’s
a very practical guy being
a qualified builder, cabinet maker and shipwright as well as being
able to undertake many mechanical and electrical projects.
Consequently Acrobat is immaculately fitted out to the high standard
needed for ocean passages. But she’s quite basic by our standards
having only hand-pumped fresh water, no hot water, no refrigeration
and only a cockpit shower. I can’t imagine how Charles and Marie
spent all those years living aboard in the Med without cold beer! He
jokes that with Scotland’s cold climate lack of refrigeration is
not a problem. As Marie is still working Charles does solo voyages
from his home port of Lossiemouth in the Firth of Forth
(close to Loch Ness and the Culloden battlefield) and
is currently on a month long trip North
Sea cruise
north to the
Orkney and Faroe Islands. This is serious sailing – The Orkneys are
about half way from Scotland’s north coast to Iceland and
the Pentland Firth between Scotland and the Orkneys has
some of the planet’s strongest tides – up to 16kn.
Quote “the
force of the tides gives rise to overfalls and tidal races …. and
often give rise to extremely violent sea conditions …. the races
are highly visible with overfalls and whirlpools.”

Imagine
Charles’s surprise when anchored at Fair Isle a Wayfarer sailing
dinghy with two POB comes alongside for a chat. A Wayfarer is a
popular UK
4.8m open
sailing
dinghy and they had sailed about 70nm from Wick to Fair Isle. Then
they sailed about another 40nm north in open seas to Lerwick in the
Shetland Islands.

That’s
what I call adventurous boating. As I write this we’re sitting
aboard Rapport on a very chilly but fine Saturday morning, safely
anchored at Waiheke’s
Owhanake
Bay
– and that’s adventurous enough for me.

I’m always impressed with people living their adventurous boating dreams in small vessels.

My younger brother Charles is a yachtsman who’s done lots of daunting sailing adventures. Among others he cruised from Perth around the northern coast of Australia to Sydney, sailed from Sydney to Lord Howe Island and back and then sailed from Brisbane to Scotland via the Med over several years while altogether racking up 14 years living aboard his 34ft van de Statd sloop, Acrobat, with his then partner, later wife Marie for.

Charles was our inspiration to embark on our own Med adventures following a visit to Turkey and a short cruise aboard Acrobat. He’sa very practical guy beinga qualified builder, cabinet maker and shipwright as well as being able to undertake many mechanical and electrical projects. Consequently Acrobat is immaculately fitted out to the high standard needed for ocean passages. But she’s quite basic by our standards having only hand-pumped fresh water, no hot water, no refrigeration and only a cockpit shower. I can’t imagine how Charles and Marie spent all those years living aboard in the Med without cold beer! He jokes that with Scotland’s cold climate lack of refrigeration is not a problem. As Marie is still working Charles does solo voyages from his home port of Lossiemouth in the Firth of Forth (close to Loch Ness and the Culloden battlefield) and is currently on a month long trip North Sea cruisenorth to the Orkney and Faroe Islands. This is serious sailing – The Orkneys are about half way from Scotland’s north coast to Iceland and the Pentland Firth between Scotland and the Orkneys has some of the planet’s strongest tides – up to 16kn.Quote “the force of the tides gives rise to overfalls and tidal races …. and often give rise to extremely violent sea conditions …. the races are highly visible with overfalls and whirlpools.”

Imagine Charles’s surprise when anchored at Fair Isle a Wayfarer sailing dinghy with two POB comes alongside for a chat. A Wayfarer is a popular UK 4.8m open sailing dinghy and they had sailed about 70nm from Wick to Fair Isle. Then they sailed about another 40nm north in open seas to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands.

That’s what I call adventurous boating. As I write this we’re sitting aboard Rapport on a very chilly but fine Saturday morning, safely anchored at Waiheke’s Owhanake Bay– and that’s adventurous enough for me.

We’ve owned Rapport now
for a year and a half, finding her to be a great cruising vessel,
however
when you
buy a pre-owned boat you inevitably make compromises compared to your
perfect desired boat. In our case there were three compromises, which
I’ll discuss.

1.
Rapport has
a large flybridge with full headroom and our compromise here was
having plastic clears as opposed to glass. Particularly facing
forward, glass is a big plus especially in heavier seas when there’s
a lot of spray reducing visibility. However Rapport’s clears are
exceptionally good being polycarbonate which
appears to retain its clarity for longer than vinyl and
we’re
just about to treat these with RainX-Plastic which should
considerably increase visibility with rain or spray. In general we’re
pretty happy with these clears and won’t consider glass as an
option until it’s time to replace the clears.

2.
We prefer gas cooking to electric. There’s a lot said about gas
safety
issues, but we’re perfectly comfortable with professionally
installed lpg systems with gas detectors. The main plus with lpg is
you can cook without running a generator. Rapport has electric bench
top hobs and a convection microwave. It took a while to get used to
the convection microwave
and while
Di says she would still prefer a “proper oven” we find it
adequate, supplemented by an electric frying
pan. To
avoid
having
to start the generator just to make a morning
cup of tea
or coffee we bought a small bench top single hob “Gasmate” stove.
This uses disposable lpg bottles which only cost $1.35 and last one or two
days. We also use this for boiling vegetables etc. There’s
no problem using electric cooking while the main engines are running
and charging the batteries, in fact for any electrical device that uses heat like kettles, toasters and hair driers an engine or generator needs to be running due to high current draw. Using
the generator for cooking in the evening is also
not a
problem as we often need to run it to charge our house battery bank,
particularly if we haven’t run the main engines that day. In the
summer most of our cooking is on a lpg BBQ and we really enjoy using
that. So in conclusion we’ve adapted and will continue with the
present system.

3.
As you will have read in our last posting we really enjoy using our
dinghy and ideally wanted a 3m rigid-hulled inflatable with a 15hp
4-stroke outboard, lifted
on board by crane. Rapport came with an old TakaCat inflatable that
after a few weeks we literally threw away as it had so many air
leaks. In
any case its 6hp Mercury outboard was too heavy for us to comfortably
lift on and off the dinghy.

Our current small Aquapro

As
Rapport
came without
a crane and
we needed something in a hurry that the two of us could lift onto the
foredeck cradle we bought a very lightweight (33kg) Aquapro SLR 2.6m
rigid-hulled inflatable with a Honda 2.5hp air cooled outboard. We
had one of these Hondas in the Med and found it to be super – very
reliable and nearly always starting first pull. This package has
worked well but was always a temporary solution. We’re now going to
sell the Aquapro/Honda and upgrade to an approx 3m rigid hulled
inflatable with a 15hp 4-stroke outboard. This will give us planing
ability with at least two adults, more
room when we have often have four adults aboard, longer
range and better rough water capability. Not
to mention much more fun! Bear in mind that on a typical coastal
cruiser your inflatable is also your life raft in a worst case
scenario. In order to lift this dinghy
aboard Rapport we’ll need to install an electric crane and we’re
researching whether we can store the dinghy on a new rack to be built
behind the flybridge (preferred option) or on the existing foredeck
rack. Also
researching which inflatable to buy and whether to fit a Honda,
Suzuki, Mercury or Yamaha outboard. However our choice may be be influenced by what is actually available – watch
this space.

ENJOY
YOUR WINTER CRUISING

In
many European and North American boating locations Autumn is time to
winterise
your boat and leave it until Spring, however in Auckland
there’s
no reason not
to swap
shorts and tee-shirts for jeans and sweatshirts and enjoy
most of what cruising has to offer throughout
our
winter.

Average
weather statistics will
surprise you. For
example Auckland’s average daytime winter temperature is 14-15dC
while by
comparison popular
cruising destination Scotland has an average
summer
temperature
of only
15-17dC.
Also
surprisingly, on
average January is Auckland’s windiest month while the least windy
are March and May through
August. In
Auckland showers
are more prevalent than constant rain and the weather out among the
Gulf
islands is
invariably sunnier than on the mainland. For
example we often look back from Waiheke basking in the
sunshine to
see the mainland shrouded by cloud.

Auckland
is New
Zealand’s most populous boating area where
the Hauraki Gulf’s
Mahurangi
Harbour and Kawau Bay to the north-west, Great Barrier Island to the
north-east and the string of islands from Rangitoto to Ponui in the
south offer
safe shelter in most weather conditions all year round.

Cruising
in winter offers
less crowded anchorages, good fishing and
also means
using your boat regularly, thereby reducing the chances of unexpected
problems. I often see owners starting their diesel engines at the
marina during winter, however engineers tell
me there’s
no substitute for using your boat regularly and working
your
engines under load at normal operating temperature, which can’t be
achieved in the marina. In
fact I’ve been told that starting your engines without loading them
can do more harm than good.

The
winter nights are of course longer from around 1800 to 0700 hours.
We find keeping warm not an issue with heat from the galley, an
electric fan heater powered from our generator and a portable gas
heater. Other
systems such as diesel heaters are also available. Ensure adequate
ventilation when
using gas heaters to avoid dangerous build ups of carbon
monoxide.

We
had planned a ten day family cruise for late May and as departure
approaches
we watch the
forecast with some consternation. The approaching weather system
is
so unusual that the media describes
it as a
“weather bomb,” caused by a ridge of high pressure in the eastern
Tasman Sea combining with a deep low pressure trough north-east
of the North Island to cause south-easterly winds in excess of 40
knots and exceptionally high swells in excess of four metres. A
gale
warning is
issued for
the Hauraki Gulf, but only a strong wind advisory for
the Waitemata harbour, so we modify
our plans to avoid the outer
Gulf and
enjoy the Waiheke area.

We
leave on
a Friday
afternoon in a light south-easterly breeze and cruise to Owhanaki Bay
on Waiheke’s north-west-coast. Here
is perfect
for the
forecast strong
south-east
winds and we find only a handful of boats anchored here
providing
us with plenty of all-important
swinging room.
We’re
cautious about this as having
anchored many nights over the years in adverse conditions our only
problems have ever been caused by other anchored vessels coming
adrift and hitting us.
The rocks
either side of the bay’s entrance are awash with a larger than
normal swell, but where
we’re anchored there’s just a gentle lift. With the wind
predicted to increase to 25 knots we elect to stay here for the next
couple of days finding it perfectly comfortable and secure.

Winter rainbow in Chamberlin’s Bay, Ponui

By
Tuesday it’s a beautiful sunny day, albeit a bit colder as the wind
increases
and temporarily
shifts a bit to the south. We anchor off Oneroa Bay, slightly further
east, where our family members join us having arrived by ferry at
Matiatia. We
want to cruise east to the Waiheke Channel and it’s decision time.
Do we take the route to the north of Waiheke enjoying the sheltered
northern coast, but risking heavy south-east seas when we turn south
into the Firth of Thames, or do we cruise east along the Tamaki
Strait on the
southern side of Waiheke expecting a large
wind-driven
chop for most of the way but no heavy seas? We elect the latter and
cruise south
down
the
west coast of Waiheke in tranquillity before turning east at Park
Point into the full brunt of a steady 35 knot south-easterly gusting
into the 40s. Although the wind-driven chop is about two metres high
it’s
directly on our bow so Rapport’s 16 metre hull handles the
conditions well at about 8 knots with plenty of spray but little
discomfort and with
conditions
gradually improving
as we approach the Waiheke Channel.
Normally
with a south-east wind we’d anchor in Ponui
Island’s Chamberlin’s
Bay, but with
the exceptionally strong winds we
find residual
swell from the Firth
of Thames so anchor slightly further to the east in the more
sheltered Te Kawau Bay.

During
the next few days
the south-easterly is
far too strong to venture out into our favoured fishing areas of the
Firth so we seek out
new fishing spots in the more
sheltered waters of
the Waiheke Channel finding
two locations
that provide
plenty of action.

Faced
with the “weather bomb” it would have been all too easy to cancel
our cruise, but we enjoy ten great days away confirming that winter
cruising even in poor weather can be enjoyed.

We’ve owned Rapport now for a year and a half, finding her to be a great cruising vessel, however when you buy a pre-owned boat you inevitably make compromises compared to your perfect desired boat. In our case there were three compromises, which I’ll discuss.

1. Rapport has a large flybridge with full headroom and our compromise here was having plastic clears as opposed to glass. Particularly facing forward, glass is a big plus especially in heavier seas when there’s a lot of spray reducing visibility. However Rapport’s clears are exceptionally good being polycarbonate which appears to retain its clarity for longer than vinyl and we’re just about to treat these with RainX-Plastic which should considerably increase visibility with rain or spray. In general we’re pretty happy with these clears and won’t consider glass as an option until it’s time to replace the clears.

2. We prefer gas cooking to electric. There’s a lot said about gas safety issues, but we’re perfectly comfortable with professionally installed lpg systems with gas detectors. The main plus with lpg is you can cook without running a generator. Rapport has electric bench top hobs and a convection microwave. It took a while to get used to the convection microwaveand while Di says she would still prefer a “proper oven” we find it adequate, supplemented by an electric frying pan. To avoidhavingto start the generator just to make a morning cup of tea or coffee we bought a small bench top single hob “Gasmate” stove. This uses disposable lpg bottles which are cheap and last one or two days. We also use this for boiling vegetables etc. There’s no problem using electric cooking while the main engines are running and charging the batteries. Using the generator for cooking in the evening is also not a problem as we often need to run it to charge our house battery bank, particularly if we haven’t run the main engines that day. In the summer most of our cooking is on a lpg BBQ and we really enjoy using that. So in conclusion we’ve adapted and will continue with the present system.

3. As you will have read in our last posting we really enjoy using our dinghy and ideally wanted a 3m rigid-hulled inflatable with a 15hp 4-stroke outboard, lifted on board by crane. Rapport came with an old TakaCat inflatable that after a few weeks we literally threw away as it had so many air leaks. In any case its 6hp Mercury outboard was too heavy for us to comfortably lift on and off the dinghy.

As Rapport came without a crane and we needed something in a hurry that the two of us could lift onto the foredeck cradle we bought a very lightweight (33kg) Aquapro SLR 2.6m rigid-hulled inflatable with a Honda 2.5hp air cooled outboard. We had one of these Hondas in the Med and found it to be super – very reliable and nearly always starting first pull. This package has worked well but was always a temporary solution. We’re now going to sell the Aquapro/Honda and upgrade to an approx 3m rigid hulled inflatable with a 15hp 4-stroke outboard. This will give us planing ability with at least two adults, more room when we have often have four adults aboard, longer range and better rough water capability. Not to mention much more fun! Bear in mind that on a typical coastal cruiser your inflatable is also your life raft in a worst case scenario. In order to lift this dinghyaboard Rapport we’ll need to install an electric crane and we’re researching whether we can store the dinghy on a new rack to be built behind the flybridge (preferred option) or on the existing foredeck rack. Also researching which inflatable to buy and whether to fit a Honda, Suzuki, Mercury or Yamaha outboard – watch this space.

ENJOY YOUR WINTER CRUISING

In many European and North American boating locations Autumn is time to winteriseyour boat and leave it until Spring, however in Auckland there’s no reason not to swap shorts and tee-shirts for jeans and sweatshirts and enjoy most of what cruising has to offer throughoutourwinter.

Average weather statistics willsurprise you. For example Auckland’s average daytime winter temperature is 14-15dC while bycomparison popular cruising destination Scotland has an averagesummertemperature of only 15-17dC. Also surprisingly, on average January is Auckland’s windiest month while the least windy are March and May throughAugust. In Auckland showers are more prevalent than constant rain and the weather out among the Gulf islands is invariably sunnier than on the mainland. For example we often look back from Waiheke basking in the sunshine to see the mainland shrouded by cloud.

Auckland is New Zealand’s most populous boating area where the Hauraki Gulf’sMahurangi Harbour and Kawau Bay to the north-west, Great Barrier Island to the north-east and the string of islands from Rangitoto to Ponui in the south offer safe shelter in most weather conditions all year round.

Cruising in winter offersless crowded anchorages, good fishing and also means using your boat regularly, thereby reducing the chances of unexpected problems. I often see owners starting their diesel engines at the marina during winter, however engineers tell me there’s no substitute for using your boat regularly and working your engines under load at normal operating temperature, which can’t be achieved in the marina. In fact I’ve been told that starting your engines without loading them can do more harm than good.

The winter nights are of course longer from around 1800 to 0700 hours. We find keeping warm not an issue with heat from the galley, an electric fan heater powered from our generator and a portable gas heater. Other systems such as diesel heaters are also available. Ensure adequate ventilation when using gas heaters to avoid dangerous build ups of carbon monoxide.

We had planned a ten day family cruise for late May and as departure approacheswe watch theforecast with some consternation. The approaching weather system isso unusual that the media describesit as a “weather bomb,” caused by a ridge of high pressure in the eastern Tasman Sea combining with a deep low pressure trough north-eastof the North Island to cause south-easterly winds in excess of 40 knots and exceptionally high swells in excess of four metres. A gale warning is issued forthe Hauraki Gulf, but only a strong wind advisory forthe Waitemata harbour, so we modifyour plans to avoid the outer Gulf and enjoy the Waiheke area.

We leave on a Friday afternoon in a light south-easterly breeze and cruise to Owhanaki Bay on Waiheke’s north-west-coast. Here is perfect for the forecast strong south-east winds and we find only a handful of boats anchored here providing us with plenty of all-important swinging room. We’re cautious about this as having anchored many nights over the years in adverse conditions our only problems have ever been caused by other anchored vessels coming adrift and hitting us. The rocks either side of the bay’s entrance are awash with a larger than normal swell, but where we’re anchored there’s just a gentle lift. With the wind predicted to increase to 25 knots we elect to stay here for the next couple of days finding it perfectly comfortable and secure.

ByTuesday it’s a beautiful sunny day, albeit a bit colder as the wind increases and temporarily shifts a bit to the south. We anchor off Oneroa Bay, slightly further east, where our family members join us having arrived by ferry at Matiatia. We want to cruise east to the Waiheke Channel and it’s decision time. Do we take the route to the north of Waiheke enjoying the sheltered northern coast, but risking heavy south-east seas when we turn south into the Firth of Thames, or do we cruise east along the Tamaki Strait on thesouthern side of Waiheke expecting a large wind-driven chop for most of the way but no heavy seas? We elect the latter and cruise south down the west coast of Waiheke in tranquillity before turning east at Park Point into the full brunt of a steady 35 knot south-easterly gusting into the 40s. Although the wind-driven chop is about two metres high it’s directly on our bow so Rapport’s 16 metre hull handles the conditions well at about 8 knots with plenty of spray but little discomfort and with conditions gradually improvingas we approach the Waiheke Channel. Normally with a south-east wind we’d anchor in Ponui Island’s Chamberlin’s Bay, but with the exceptionally strong winds we find residual swell from the Firth of Thames so anchor slightly further to the east in the more sheltered Te Kawau Bay.

During the next few daysthe south-easterly isfar too strong to venture out into our favoured fishing areas of the Firth so we seek out new fishing spots in the more sheltered waters ofthe Waiheke Channel finding two locationsthat provide plenty of action.

Faced with the “weather bomb” it would have been all too easy to cancel our cruise, but we enjoy ten great days away confirming that winter cruising even in poor weather can be enjoyed.