The Adventures of Captain Ray Penson
Sailing Yacht Truce
I am in Saudi Arabia for a short job, inspecting a couple of ships. Its quite warm and everything is covered in sand, not really my type of place but I should be able to top up the boat fund and carry on preparing for next summer. Anyway, I went offshore yesterday and got marooned... Continue Reading →
Banging to windward all last night and today on starboard tack. Getting to New Zealand is a battle, every mile must be won. I am not complaining – some are still in the north waiting for a break in the weather and one yachtsman is sheltering at Raoul Island. The daybreak this morning was beautiful... Continue Reading →
Yesterday was a damp squid. Rain all Saturday night and Sunday morning. Sunday was overcast, wet and showery, cool all day. Onshore it was very quiet, hardly anyone about, shops all shut. I suppose everyone has gone to church and retreated home, the sort of day you want to have a nice fire and stay put. Today is sunny with a... Continue Reading →
The rain from yesterday evening continued overnight, finally giving way to some sunshine mid-morning. I spent a few minutes bailing out the pig before we could go ashore – amazing how much water collected overnight. By ten I had visited the customs and port office to clear out from the Vava’u group. The tonnage dues... Continue Reading →
We have both got the channels – even worse than yesterday. Last night the discussion turned to food again and the dishes we were going to eat in Tonga. Then Jessica started showing me photos of the food she had been eating in Vietnam. We both seem to be slightly obsessed with the food thing... Continue Reading →
As they say in football – today has been a day of two halves. From midday to midnight we romped along, reefed down, in twenty knot winds doing a comfortable six knots. At midnight, we had clocked seventy plus miles and all was good. After midnight we ran into a rain squall (probably a front) and after a brief flurry... Continue Reading →
Time flies when you’re having fun. I just realised its eight days since I left san Francisco. Days at sea run into each other, there is no demarcation or need for holidays or weekends. When I look at the daily progress on the chart it seems so small but its steady and relentless, day and... Continue Reading →
It’s now a week since I left sunny NZ. The first couple of days at Canoe Cove were not too flash, I caught some disease (United Airlines food poisoning maybe) and felt awful. For two days I was pretty useless, feeling cold and miserable and couldn’t eat. Luckily, I stayed at an Airbnb just five... Continue Reading →
The start of 2017 finds me standing on the bridge of a vessel steaming up the Malacca Strait, passing Port Dickson. It’s a beautiful balmy night with a faint offshore breeze bringing out the smells of vegetation and wood smoke wafting the water. There’s searchlights ashore piercing the sky, must be part of the New... Continue Reading →
The trip was a wonderful opportunity to get to know the boat and the systems on board. In the early days of the trip I had to undertake a lot of maintenance as the boat hadn’t been in use full time. During the trip I suffered no major failures and am confident the boat is... Continue Reading →
The Adventures of Captain Ray Penson 