Picton to Napier

After a good week of watching the weather we finally got our window of opportunity to sail north. We originally planned to sail all the way to Gisborne, but after finding out there was a fishing tournament on and there would be little room in the marina for us, we decided to stop in Napier instead.

The journey from Picton to Napier was approx. 250 miles and took around 55 hours. Of those 55 hours, 28 hours were spent motoring in no wind, and the rest of the time was spent sailing into a headwind. The journey was not without its challenges; weather, seasickness, fatigue, sailing at night, and the challenges of doing everyday activities such as showering and cooking on a moving boat. However, we planned for those challenges, which made a big difference to our confidence and comfort during the passage.

Being escorted across Palliser Bay  

We spent quite a lot of time preparing during our last days in the Marlborough Sounds. One of the things we found difficult was knowing what weather to look for in choosing when to go. We had a lot of piecemeal advice from other sailors we had met but couldn’t find any definitive advice on what weather to look for. Probably there is no ideal forecast but a variety of trade-offs to be made depending on which winds you choose. We spent a lot of time scrutinising the MetService weather forecasts and even decided to pay for a weather routing service, PredictWind, to help us plan. We also spent time checking the tide times for Tory Channel and the Cook Strait, and plotting out our route with waypoints on both paper and electronic charts. Overnight we took turns to do 3-hour watches. We also spent the day before we left cooking all of our meals for 3 days so we only had to heat up food while on the move.

Sunset on the first night as we rounded Cape Palliser

We chose to leave Tory Channel in a dying southerly, the previous days had been blowing 30+kts in Cook Strait. We headed out at 10am, two hours after Picton high tide and timed so that we would not have too much current leaving Tory Channel, and also so we would not pass through Karori rip at mid tide. The forecast for the Cook Strait was for a 20kt southerly wind dying out so we had our smaller headsail rigged.  As usual we had the short turbulent waves going around Cape Terawhiti and Sinclair Head, but overall the Cook Strait was relatively calm with a little swell and a moderate sea. We had a pod of dolphins join us across Palliser Bay, and they kept returning to the boat several times to keep us company. Just before we started to round Cape Palliser, around 10pm, the wind died off and we had to turn the engine on and motor for the rest of the night. There is a large lighthouse at Cape Palliser that is visible up to 26 miles offshore and another lighthouse just a little further along the Wairarapa coast. It was really nice to be able to see clearly where the coastline was during our watches on the first night.  The night watches were generally uneventful, with the exception of some dolphins swimming around the boat at 1am in the bio-luminescence, which Dave tells me looked spectacular – I was sleeping.

Motoring along the Wairarapa coast in zero wind and zero swell

The next day we decided to swap our headsails from our smaller headsail (100% jib) that we had used in the stronger winds in Cook Strait to our larger headsail (130% Genoa) that would be more suitable for the lighter breezes that were forecast for the rest of our trip. We had only ever changed the headsails before while the boat was stationary in the marina. Hauling out the large headsail through our front hatch, dropping the smaller headsail and swapping them over, all the while bobbing around in swell, was a little more challenging. Apart from wrapping the halyard around the forestay on the first hoist and having to drop it again to sort the lines out, it went smoothly. Once we successfully got the bigger headsail rigged, it was well worth the effort as we were able to sail at a respectable 4-5 knots in light 10kt northeast winds for the rest of the day. We also had some more dolphins come to visit us throughout the day, which provided some relief from the general monotony.

More dolphins!

The second night, Dave was on watch tacking us around Cape Turnagain. It was a little unnerving as we tacked our way around the headland with no lighthouse. It was difficult to judge how far away the land was in the dark, and we were grateful for the radar and GPS.  At about 1am, the wind shifted slightly as I was about to start my watch. With the two of us up and about we tacked the boat and I sailed us for another hour until the wind died off again. I gave Dave the fright of his life when I turned the engine on, forgetting as it roared to life that he was sleeping in the back cabin with his head right next to the engine compartment.

Sunset as we sailed around Cape Turnagain

It was interesting to see the change in the coastal landscape on the third morning, which was much drier close to Napier compared with the dark green, rugged landscape around the south coast and Wairarapa. As we rounded Cape Kidnappers the wind came back in and we had a nice 4-5 hour sail across Hawkes Bay. The entrance to the marina in Napier is quite shallow and it’s better to go in on at least half-tide. Thankfully our timing worked out well and it was almost high tide when we came in. It would have sucked if we had needed to wait for the tide after such a long sail. Unknown to us this weekend happens to be the Art Deco festival in Napier so we’re going to stick around for a few days to enjoy the festivities.

Finally on a beam reach as we sailed away from Cape Kidnappers