Homeward Bound, up to Lyttelton

  We left Port Pegasus on Stewart Island with a good, but mixed, forecast. The first section, up to Foveaux Strait, should have been motoring in very light conditions with a favorable tidal current. Then we expected a gradually building southwesterly to scoot us downwind up to Otago Harbour / Dunedin. Well, not only was the forecast a bit off, but the plan fell apart right at the beginning.

While motoring out the south passsage from Port Pegasus, the engine lost power abruptly and stopped, and at a particularly bad spot. A light breeze came from forward on our port side, while a rocky shore was perhaps a hundred yards to starboard. As is our usual practice, all the sail covers were off, and the halyards on — i.e. the sails were ready to raise, except for a couple of sail ties — so we scrambled to make sail as fast as we could.  The main went up in moments, but the main is not enough sail for Mintaka to tack. She wants both the mizzen and the jib for that, plus a little speed, as well. Not enough time or distance. Our only option was to jibe, to turn to starboard, away from the wind, at first straight at the rocks, then more and more parallel to shore, and eventually away. But with only the main up and drawing, and only a light wind, she was moving too slowly for the rudder to be effective, and was not turning fast enough to miss the rocks. We needed the jib up to catch the wind far forward and pull her bow downwind to starboard.

Immediately the main was up, Robyn jumped to the jib, but the one sail tie on it had a jammed knot, and wouldn’t release with just the usual pull. Critical seconds raced by while she struggled with the damned knot. Finally — really only about ten seconds later, but they were very long seconds — Robyn freed the knot and got the jib up. I sheeted in to fill it with wind, and the bow began to fall away to starboard. We missed the rocks by less than ten feet.

This was not a good time or place to work on the engine, so we beat out the passage into the open sea and on upwind to the northeast. Actually, it was good that the forecast was off. Had there not been enough wind to sail, we would have really been screwed. But beating upwind at sea almost doubles the straight-line distance. Even so, I just didn’t relish the thought of troubleshooting the engine while heeled well over and jumping over the waves. Some six hours later (of pretty good sailing), but not nearly as far along as originally expected, the wind and sea dropped, and I set about trying to get the engine going again.

Well, mea culpa. The fault did not lie with the engine — not that that diminishes the drama or near tragedy earlier. There is an idiosyncracy in the fuel system that can only create a problem in one unusual set of circumstances. This had only happened once before, several years ago, and I had simply forgotten. Time to re-engineer that.

So, now the engine is purring again, but there’s still a little headwind, and the tidal current has turned, so it’s now against us. Hour after hour, we clawed our way forward, sometimes as slow as one knot. Finally heading away from shore across Foveaux Strait, things settled down, we picked up speed, and the promised southwesterly slowly developed. Did it ever! By dawn we had 20-25 knots straight behind us. With the larger jib poled out to starboard, and the full main spread out to port, we screamed downwind at seven to eight knots, even a few times at nine knots (with a little gravity assist down a wave). Normally, we would shorten sail to lessen such speed and calm the boat down, but it was so smooth! Thoroughly enjoying the sleigh ride, we ate up the miles. So much so that we would have entered Otago Harbour well before dawn, so we carried on up to Oamaru, some forty miles further north.

The wind was projected to drop away and turn against us from the north, so timing was critical. I expected to have to kill just an hour or so in order to enter Oamaru at dawn, but the dying wind did that job for us. We motored in at first light, picked up a mooring, and the wind soon rose again from the north. Perfect.

We had visited Oamaru on our way south almost two months ago, and had found it to be a friendy and interesting place. Hadn’t changed. The mooring was free for as long as we needed it. The Victorian theme was still amusing. And this time, we walked out to where the little blue penguins and sea lions come ashore each day. The timing was off for the penguins — we’ve seen many of them anyway — but it was cool to gape at the sea lions lounging on the rocks.  Kiwi Logic was also here, and we enjoyed further socializing with them.

Playing Tourist

One of a Dozen or so Sea Lions

Not one of the Little Blue Penguins

After a few days, the forecast was so-so for continuing north, but we took it. A mix of motoring in light headwinds, with some hours of fine sailing took us overnight up to and around the Banks Peninsula and into the now familiar Lyttelton Harbour and marina. We’ll be here at least another week, before the long jump to Napier. That leg is 330 miles, three or more days. Stay tuned.