Sailing around the world

03-07-2008 Just leaving Manihi for Rangiroa.
Marquesas to Tuamotu Islands

Arrived Rangiroa lunch time today 3rd July and will stop a night or two.
We have our skates on and plan to be in Tahiti by 9th for the visitors arriving 11th.

Stopped at Manihi for a night. A break in the journey and a full nights sleep then left late afternoon for the night sail to Rangiroa after a swim in the beautiful clear turquoise water and saw that the port side hull outside had grown an inch long beard of green grass. It must have had the most sun since the Marquesas. We put the much repaired spinnaker up before sunset to check it out and decided against risking using it in the pitch black moonless night and had a slow sail until it got so slow we hoisted old “Threads”.

These atholls are rings of islets of varying sizes with a large lagoon in the centre. Entry into the calmer lagoon waters is usually only through one narrow channel and can be tricky in the rip of an in or out going tide not to mention the coral patches rising up all over the place. The anchorage here is beautiful if a bit rolly. Rangiroa is the second largest atholl in the world. The islets are so low lying you can only see them within about 10 miles and the lagoon is endless. About 40 miles across.

The Marquesas Island of Nuka Hiva is beautiful. I love the high green clad mountains with the rugged rocks. The steep ravines and sharp peaks. It reminds me of Table Mountain in Cape Town and more especially the Kirstenbosh area with the sea right up to the parking lot of that world famous garden paradise. The island is kept immaculately clean and tidy. Every afternoon there are little fires where they burn the leaves just raked up although I wonder why they don’t allow them to compost down in a neat corner somewhere.

We were given some Pampelmouse. Delicious grapefruit like fruit. So juicy and not as sour or bitter as the usual grapefruit.

Hoping to stop at a few more bays and islands in this group but for now have been busy with all the fix-ups. I can’t remember that camp fire song with actions but our boat reminds me of it.

The windows are not so good so tape the windows.
Then the dinghy has sprung a leak so pump the dinghy, tape the windows.
Then the spin rips so sew the sail pump the dinghy, tape the window.
Then the ….

You get the idea.

Along the way although the mast gate track was fixed properly the sliders fell out and were lost overboard. Not too bad but we knew we would have to drop the main rather than reef and once it was down we would not be able to rehoist it until making some sort of replacement parts. Shortly after dropped the main to hover around the vicinity of another yacht having some problems with their spinnaker overboard and wrapped round their props and later we spent the night chopping the chopping board for a piece of plastic to round down into a 8mm dowel. Early next morning we are back in business sailwise and no noticeable difference to the bread board that has already donated a part of itself to the base of the jammers.

One night needing to reef we started the engines to come head to wind and the port engine won’t start. The battery has died. Just like that. Dead as a dodo. No hint of a problem before back in any other part of the world where the battery will cost a fraction of what it has here in the Marquesas. But that is the nature of boats for you. We continue working on the boat in exotic locations or in one word, cruising

Lorna and James

We blew the spinnaker. What’s new! It shouldn’t have gone though. Not in 11 knots of wind.

Only just put it up, no flapping or flogging or sudden gusts. At first I thought the halyard had slipped as all I could see was the spinnaker dropping down but as I clambered along forward I saw it had ripped. Starting from the luff tape, and while I unwound the snuffer lines, ripping before my eyes all the way across the crown and then carrying on all the way down the long leach just in from the tape edge. James makes it forward in time to drag the bits on deck while I drop the halyard.

It took hours – no make that days of hard graft, sewing patches back and front. First tacking it in place by hand after carefully lining up the torn threads to keep the shape, then machine stitching it roughly before all the zig zags to hold it all down and give it a bit of strength. Not too much stitching in one place to avoid strengthening it too much and make the bit alongside weak.

The machine can only do straight stitch so to get the zig zag effect I have to turn the fabric around the machine needle.

The first couple of days I got the bulk of placing the patches done and then we were off in a fair breeze. Sewing at the cockpit table was impossible with the wind catching the thread and wrapping it around other bits of the machine in between stitches. Sewing inside is not so comfortable.

A couple of days out and the wind started easing. I knew in the morning it would be spinnaker weather and my shifts through the night were spent climbing in and out of my spinnaker cacoon either to check on our sailing progress or to get behind that other wheel and turn some stitches. Sometimes I would only just find my place and I would need to climb back out of mountains of fabric to make some adjustment to the boat trim.

Eventually I had it all patched up. And here the photos are so disappointing. (will upload asap) They make it look like a tiny tear across the top point. In reality the red section coming down along the side is about two meters. The one whole side needed work and patches went on back and front. Also it was not a neat straight tear. There were great holes of missing fabric, inches of waft threads with all the weave threads in a fuzzy ball at the nearest seam, and horizontal, vertical and diagonal rips.

Up it went early morning only to have to come down for a quick fix in a unrelated spot showing some daylight through a small tear. A few hours later and a another safety measure patch on a patch repair was done. We dropped it for the night late afternoon as the wind was starting to pick up.

Next day with the lighter wind it went back up and it stayed up for the following night with me watching it like a hawk and adjusting our course so as to keep the pressure off “Threads” even if we sailed a little slower. With James on duty and me trying to sleep through the nightmares of a freshly broken spinnaker I am woken with the thing hanging it tatters again. I think James has gone for the speed and direction option as opposed to the “save the threads” option.This was supposed to have been a heavy duty spinnaker. It has now ripped all the way across again but just below the last repair. I have been chopping up the old spinnaker for patches but I think I should have chopped up the new one to repair the old.

I am not impressed. My back and neck still ache from the last lot of sewing. I do not want to see the thing again and tell James to leave it in the locker on deck. In all his wisdom James insists on examining it and bringing it back to the cockpit. For the next few days I get to stomp over it umpteen times. Eventually I tackle it without enthusiasm and no more carefully matching threads I put in a huge overlap with darts and puckers in the wider lower part so that it fits to the narrower head section. It can now only be used in very light winds and no more tight angles to the wind. There will be days when it will come in very handy.

Sew, sew and more sew and early one morning after a relatively slow night up it goes. I am not convinced it is the right thing to do. The wind is light but patchy. We have had a day of this patchy stuff and the full main has been up then as it starts flopping and flogging with the wave action it has been reefed. Hardly done and the wind has picked up that tiny bit and the reef has been taken out. No sooner done and it has started flogging again. Reef in. Reef out.

Now the full main is up with the spinnaker. This is good as it will shield the spin from any strong puffs but then it is also a problem in that during the lulls it takes all the wind and the spin flops.

The spinnaker is only just up when it flops gets caught up on the spreader which pops a hole in it near the leach tape and hooks out the leach line running up the tape. The spin doesn’t rip but it is stuck up there on the spreader. In our efforts to get it down we cause some damage and I have yet again more sewing to do. After all that sewing the spinnaker has flown for a maximum of 36 hours.

I had really looked forward to this particular leg of our journey but I have found it the worst. Too much sewing and repair jobs to enjoy the journey or was it the race effect of having other yachts also sailing the same leg. When one yacht sails a journey it is a cruise, when more than one yacht sails the same journey it is a race! Give me cruising any day.

Hi All,

Being Sunday the internet cafes were all shut and the mails couldn’t get sent.

We are now in The Marquesas after 3000 plus miles of some quite fast days clocking up near the 200 mile per day mark.

I fixed the spinnaker, fixed it, fixed it, fixed it, James broke it. I fixed it again, James broke it again……. Mast track sliders got redone, engine fan belt replaced and the list goes on.

Will be in touch soon.

Lorna and James

(PS. Our google Earth file is now up to date)

...continued from last post.


So Ngaire and I hop off the bus from Panama at the supermarket stop and head for the taxi rank. The supervisor sees us coming, finds out where we want to go and while she explains to the driver where to take us, and he understands, (which is a good sign as it is not the usual route for the locals) we hop into the only taxi available.

It is a battered and clapped out wreck, but not as much of a skedonk as the one James and I took in Margarita. When we asked for a taxi, the group of men with their heads under the bonnet, hammering away, simply dropped the bonnet with a clang and said “hop in”. The doors closed with a two inch gap all round and I won’t go into the rest. But that was back in Margarita.

The driver partly turns round to Ngaire and I and I see his one eye is very clouded over. No health and safety issues here about being allowed to drive or even drive public transport. The rules of the road are equally casual. We reach the busy junction of cross country motorway, shopping precinct and downtown main road. Cars, busses, trucks and taxi’s all criss crossing the 5 or 6 way intersection. We have seen very few traffic lights and stop signs. All the four way junctions appear to be controlled by each driver’s sense of fair play and patience. Somehow it usually all works out.

At the sound of a blaring horn and a squeal of brakes and with our bonnet protruding into another lane beyond the back of a bus, our driver turns to reassure us and we see he is ideally suited to these junctions at rush hour – his eyes work independently of each other.

We make it across the BBQ grating over the locks while the water surges below with the pressure of the draining lock and to the end of the forest track just before dark. With a smile our driver offers us his card in case we need a taxi again. His name! - Dracula. I kid you not! You can’t make up stuff like this.