Date: 3/7/15
Position: The visitors pontoon, Napier Sailing Club
We enjoyed a week in Wellington and had the most consecutive sunny days that we had experienced in a while. It was easy to hop on and off buses and trains to get around and explore the city and surrounding areas. The three highlights of our stay were visiting Te Papa which is the museum of NZ, having a tour of the Metservice office and joining Titus and Nicole on their yacht Gypsy Girl for a Saturday sail in the harbour.
On Tuesday morning we departed Wellington with a gale warning forecast for the northern section of sea area Castlepoint ahead of us, although the grib files only indicated winds of west north west up to 30 knots. The conditions over the following 5 days looked even less favourable with strong head winds, so it was either go now or stay until next week.
We like the detail given by the grib files forecast of predicted wind speed and direction every 3 hours, but it was impossible to ignore a gale warning. Gale warnings are transmitted over the marine radio regularly for those of us foolish enough to be sailing in the sea area affected. The other reason we decided to go was that the wind would be coming off the land and would not build as big a sea as if it was experienced mid ocean.
The tactic we planned to employ was to stay far enough offshore to avoid the wind funnelling through the valleys and to keep east of the steep drop off of the sea bed, thereby avoiding the shallower coast that tends to shorten the wave frequency. This would also avoid the turbulence of the southerly swell as it steepens at the underwater drop off area.
On exiting the harbour channel entrance we again met three inter island ferries. But at least we had the wind with us this time. Once clear of the shipping channel, we turned for Cape Palliser and set the poled out head sail to run wing and wing. It was a clear sunny day, not a cloud to be seen, the snow capped mountains of the Kaikoura range visible again with the occasional Cape Petrel and Albatross carving their circuitous flights in search of a feed.
We rounded Cape Palliser and re shaped the sails to take advantage of the land breeze abeam of us. This point of sailing is called beam reaching and Ambler hits top speed from beam reaching to close reaching where the wind is forward of beam on.
The afternoon wore on and once the sun had set with the full moon already risen to the east we saw two very bright stars, actually planets, above the horizon to the west, one was Venus, the other we later found out was Jupiter. In the evening the breeze began to build and the sail area was suitably reduced to match the conditions.
All went to plan except that we experienced gale force wind for three hours south of the forecasted gale area and were almost becalmed for an hour once we crossed into the actual area forecasted to cop the gale. The wind then built up gradually to gale force again over the next three hours as we transited through. Then the Metservice issued a new gale warning after midnight, this time for the southern section of sea area Portland, which we had just entered. This second gale blew hard for the next five hours and had us surging along at over 6.5 knots with a heavily reefed main and staysail set. It was forecasted to reach 45 knots. We regularly found potholes in the ocean to fall into and breaking seas continously thumped onto the deck. The full moon illuminated the wild ocean as we took turns to huddle under our bombproof hard dodger. Ambler took it all in her stride and stood up and powered through the wind and waves admirably.
By mid Wednesday morning the wind had dropped to around 20 knots. The warm sun shone and highlighted the incredible contours of the rise and falls of the coastal escarpment. At 1045 hours we crossed the 40 degree parallel of latitude and bid farewell to the roaring forties that had just given us an appropriate send off!
The breeze continued to die out as we rounded the spectacular spires and pinacle of Cape Kidnappers and into Hawke Bay. At Cape Kidnappers there is a Gannet colony and although we couldn't see it from Ambler we saw many gannets diving offshore.
At last light we arrived at the entrance to the small vessel basin to the west of Napier Harbour. Not long later we were tied up alongside the visitors pontoon at Napier Sailing Club.
After a much appreciated hot shower and a good hose down the next morning all is well and salt free on Ambler again. Till next time....
Kathy and Wayne
1 comment:
Ha, sounds like you had a typical castle point experience! for years the metservice didn't have a handle on the "river of wind" phenomenon blowing through the manawatu gorge, and the lee wave effects, but it sounds like they have got much better.
I think the gribs would struggle to accurately model these due to the strong land effects, much like the NE of tassie. Anyway a tough boat and a tough crew so glad to hear you had no problems. How did the staysail go on it's furler? did you need to reef it down to storm jib size, and did the mast need runners or was the aft led intermediates enough to stop it pumping?
Say Hi to Jim on Chinchilla and John on Panther if you see them.
Cheers from Ben, Kas and Loki (who has just turned 2)
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