Trade wind torment!

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  Noumea, New Caledonia
Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Since leaving Ecuador we have sailed over 7000 miles and have never once had to wait for the weather, we just wake up and decide to move on to the next idyllic location and go. Not the case in Vanuatu! The South Easterly Trade winds have established themselves over the last 10 days and have been blowing consistently at 20kts+. This meant that we were not able to sail down to Tanna (about 130 miles into the wind from Port Vila) and therefore we missed out on the Mount Yasur volcano, which was a real disappointment, but we can't go into the wind, especially with the predicted wind speeds.

So we waited around in Port Vila for a few days and were getting all sorts of conflicting weather information and decided to poke our nose out of the harbour on Sunday 15th to check out the weather. The swell was fairly large but the winds were ok so we set sail for Lifou, an island in the Loyalty Islands, off the west coast of the New Caledonia mainland

After the F8 sail to New Caledonia

. We made a good passage of about 24 hrs and anchored with another 2 boats who had also fled from Port Villa.

The next day we sailed around the northern tip of Lifou to a protected anchorage in the northwest for a night. On Wednesday we decided to make a dash across the 60-mile stretch of water to Grand Tere (New Caledonia mainland). We had 2 reefs in the mainsail, a small amount of headsail and were sailing on a fine reach with an average of 8kts, the fastest passage Shambhala has ever done. When we reached the mainland we dashed inside the reef looking for a place to anchor that was out of the 20-30kt winds that were thrashing their way up the coast. The main problem is that we needed to head southeast, around the southern tip of Grand Tere and around the west coast to the capital Noumea, where we could clear customs and immigration. Without clearing in at Noumea (the only port in New Caledonia where you can clear in) we couldn't go ashore to get food or other supplies.

We ended up in a large sheltered bay surrounded by huge nickel mines and pretty much nothing else. Not really the image of paradise that one associates with a South Pacific island! We were stuck there for 3 days, not being able to go ashore, just waiting for the wind to either change direction or to ease

Anchorage surrounded by a nickel mine

. We did try motoring against the wind in an attempt to make some headway south but we ended up slamming the boat against the swell, only making 3.5kts - not worth it with the stresses you put on the boat. So we waited for the wind to die and were slowly going crazy with cabin fever! At least we got the DVD player working on the computer!

We eventually left the mining bay early on Sunday morning as the wind had dropped and we managed to motor south at 6kts. We motored for 12 hours until dark and anchored in a protected bay near the southeastern point of Grand Tere. We left the next morning at 5.30 and motor-sailed around the southern tip of the island towards the capital Noumea. It was a lovely day, with light winds and no swell so after the last few days of howling winds we took it easy. It turned out that we took it a little too easy and bounced off a reef!

It is amazing how we have gone the last 7000 miles without touching the bottom at all and then when all is easy and we're relaxed we hit coral! The keel hit first as we turned to avoid the reef, which wasn't that big a deal but then we hit the rudder! Shambhala has a great deep spade rudder that is very powerful and minimises drag, as it is relatively small. The problem is that the rudder is unprotected and therefore it doesn't like solid objects like coral reefs

Hanging out!

! The rudder was forced backwards and broke the rudder stock that holds the shaft of the rudder in place. The driving arm for the autopilot was also buckled so we had to hand steer the boat to Noumea, where we were hauled out of the water immediately and the boat is now sitting on the concrete in a boat yard, hoping to re-fibre glass the rudder stock and fix the autopilot arm. All in all we reckon that our mistake of being too relaxed will cost us a week out of the water and a couple of thousand pounds! Doh!! It just goes to show that even when the conditions are a piece of cake you need to be as on the ball as you do in a gale with 4m seas.

A very expensive lesson learnt but other than the rudder and autopilot the boat is in good shape and everyone is ok. It obviously could have turned out a lot worse. So we will have to wait till the rudder stock is re-glassed before putting the boat back in the water and then we will probably sit in the marina in Noumea waiting for the weather window to take us on the 8-10 day passage down to New Zealand.

I'll keep you posted!

Lots of love,

Tom xxx

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