During daylight with the main in reef 1 we sailed pretty fast. We had STW over longer distances of between 10 – 11 KN. 11.5 was also to be seen briefly. Although I thought about sailing with reef 1 during the night too keep the high speed, I decided to give MaRe her pajama so…

Around 1408, says the logbook, we lifted the hook and motored towards the reef’s exit supported by the genoa. Once out, we set the main with reef 1 and the genoa fully. TWS is 14 – 18 KN or the 5 Bft range. At an AWA of 50 deg PRT we are running almost 9…

I just analyzed the latest wind forecast of ECMWF and GFS for the next days. The ECMWF looks a tiny little bit better in terms of TWD. However, the ECMWF has a better hit rate. If the GFS is closer to what we will experience, I will first sail a bit to W, and turn…

Since yesterday the wind here in the reef is pretty weak. As a result of this, the waves inside the reef, are created by breakers rolling partially over the reef at high tide and not by the wind. These, up to about half a meter high waves have different directions and interfer either each other.…

If one want to sail from Minerva Reef to NZ one needs to ride on the back of a high pressure area. The center of the high has to be ESE of the northern part of the North Island of NZ (roughly at 37 degS 180 deg) at the beginning and then it needs to…

At shortly after 0700 we started preparing MaRe for her Big Blue. The Big Blue brought in average 50 + % in SOG increase. That’s what I wanted because this speed is needed to arrive around noon. Now we have an ETA of 11:20 – 11:30. The point is not the minutes but the height…

I woke up about 15 min before my alarm was scheduled to wake my up, because it is b…. f…. cold! A look at the thermometer and I saw we have a new temperature record on board of MaRe: 22 degC. The last time I logged such a low temperature was in the Mediterranean Sea…

As forecasted, the wind changed to ENE and weakend. Currently we have only 12 – 15 KN TWS. Not much. To get the necessary steering angle, I downed the main sail and use only the genoa. With this I can sail directly to the WPT otherwise 2 times gybing would be needed. I assume that…

Sunny weather. TWS between 15 – 20 KN from around 90 deg. AWA is around 130 deg. By pulling the clew of the genoa with the sheet and the barber hauler it stays better open for that AWA. MaRe sails with average SOG of 5.8 KN and a STW of 7.0 KN averaged as well.…

Vava’u was the first group of islands of the Kingdom of Tonga I reached with Shigeo. I needed to get MaRe out of the water to get the shaft seals replaced at the STB saildrive and have the hulls cleaned to be allowed to enter NZ without having her immediately hauled out for cleaning. I…