CLEARED OUT AND HEADING NORTH

30^th May 2023

A look outside this morning and a double take – thick fog.  At 10:00 the anchor was aweigh and with radar on we slowly motored from Matauwhi Bay down to Opua.  By 11:00 we were anchored off Opua Marina and the fog was lifting.  With ships papers and passport in hand I headed off to custome to complete the outward clearance.  An hour later I was back on board Truce and getting ready for sea, it was actually hot now that the fog had gone, a beautiful sunny day to be going boating.

We motored out of the harbour into a headwind to just past Ninepin Rock where the wind backed around, full sail was set and the motor turned off. What a wonderful feeling, no motor and just the open ocean ahead. Setting off on a voyage is always an exciting event, no matter how big or small the ship is. The course was anything northerly for the first night and we sailed close hauled on port tack making a comfortable five knots.  Early evening the wind increased and in went the first reef in the mainsail, at midnight the ride was getting a bit too bumpy and I furled the Yankee fifty percent to give some comfort until the morning. 

Sailing single handed is all about the long term goal of arriving safe and sound with the least amount of stress on the boat and body. I have a practice of reefing down at night, I may lose a bit of speed but the boat is under less stress, the mind is more relaxed, sleep is easier and the need to be on deck during the night is reduced. During daylight I will press on more sail but when on an ocean passage I always keep the boat comfortable and never over stressed.   

The next day was the same with a few angry clouds and rain squalls thrown in, still going to windward.  Mid morning a big old Albatros came by, he did a few circles of Truce, seeming to find everything to his satisfaction he headed off, he didn’t flap his wings once.  So unusual to see Albatross this far north, maybe the last one I see for a while.

The next day the wind reduced all day and by late evening there was no point in sailing, I lashed the tiller, left the mainsail up and went to bed.  Four hours later a slight SW breeze sprang up and we sailed in rough seas and light winds for the next two days dodging storm clouds.

4^th June – all the rocking and rolling in light winds has upset Micky the windvane and something is amiss. Fortuitously, this coincided with us being becalmed. This enabled me to climb over the back of the boat and remove the windvane on board for further inspection.  I found that the set screws securing the azimuth ring to the vane shaft had worked loose due to fatigue. The stainless set screws wearing away the softer bronze material they are tapped into.  Basically the holes are too large to hold the screw thread tightly.  I reassembled everything and inserted new set screws (spares for the PSS Shaft Seal that were the same size) with lathered them with Loctite.