February 2012

Dear Friends:

When Larry and I start reminiscing about our past, we often recall special landfalls made after long ocean passages, special expeditions on land, but just as often the favorite moments that come to mind are incidents that happened on very small sailing excursions. So it remains today. Our sailing this summer has been limited by really disappointing weather, plus work, mostly pleasureable ( our US visit to boatshows to introduce Bull Canyon, a Boatbuilder a Writer and Other Wildlife and tape the video program on Cost Control we hope to have ready by May). Finally in late January the weather became less stormy, the rains eased off, and we eased Taleisin out of her marina berth. Because we live on an island with no shops (no roads either) we had very little fresh food (other than frozen meat and seafood) to take along. So we made our first destination the Mahurangi River eight miles to the south. Warkworth, a fine shopping village, lies at the head of this winding, tidal river.

There is nothing quit as wonderful as sailing a boat that keeps moving nicely in light winds. That’s the local training ship, Spirit of New Zealand at anchor in the Mahurangi River.

A wonderful beam reach on a dying afternoon breeze, a slow stately beat up the river past moored boats we knew, others that had obviously stopped here on their way to or from summer holidays. When the tide turned against us, we eased into 4 fathoms of water and set our anchor, then brought wine and drinks out into the cockpit to watch the sun slowly set. Early the next day, we settled the 2.5 horsepower 4 stroke outboard onto our tender, Cheeky, took along a chilly bin (that’s the local name for an ice chest) some cool drinks and big hats then set off for the five mile meander up river. We putted past oyster farms, small boatyards, through narrow winding mangrove passagesand had to lift the outboard motor and pole ourselves off the ground more than once since the entrance to the river is not very well marked, the water muddy and at low tide, there is less than two feet of water in some places. But for some reason being in a little dinghy, heads below the reed tops, level with the roots of the mangrove bushes made it seem like an excursion up some mysterious new river. Birds startled by our sudden appearance fluttered across the water, fish disturbed by our passage jumped and one threatened to join us in the confines of the eight foot tender.

This is our little tender cheeky being a real work horse. We were loading provisions in Fremantle when we took this shot. She didn’t carry near this much as we came down the river earlier this month.
It took us more than an hour to reach the landing at the foot of the village. Maybe it was the completely different approach, maybe it was the fact that I was on foot, with no car to park, maybe it was because I was completely on holiday and had no reason to rush to catch a ferry or go on to the city for some seemingly important event, but it was like seeing my own shopping village with completely different eyes. I took the time to wander down the back alley to the second hand shop I’d never visited before, to slowly browse the shelves of two different second hand book shops, to join Larry for coffee at a sidewalk cafĂ© where half a dozen folks we knew stopped to chat and others we didn’t know at all returned our smiles.

When we untied the dinghy four hours later, the tide had turned and our trip down river was faster, even though we now had a laden chilly bin and three bags of extra produce choking our footspace. Then we hit the open water beyond the mangroves and paid for that speed. With 20 knots of wind blowing against the outgoing tide, the wind chop made us very glad we’d used waterproof bags for our provisions. The soaking we got, the bailing we had to do to keep the bottom of the dinghy dry seemed to add to the feeling we’d had one more small adventure that would never have happened if we hadn’t set sail. But as Larry reminds me, I didn’t mind getting all salty and windblown because I knew there was a warm shower waiting as soon as we reached Taleisin.

We didn’t go far on our cruise, just a meander to visit friends at their homes along the river an excuse to laze and enjoy the views, to read some books and walk through the elegant parklands close by our anchorage. It was more than a week before we set sail to rendezvous with two very special sailors. Tom and Vicky Jackson who had just returned to New Zealand after a 20 month cruise from New Zealand, through the western Pacific Islands to Japan, then across to Canada and back south.

Sunstone is probably one of the only race boats in the world to be sporting her original varnished hull. This is how she looks after 170,000 miles of sailing and racing.

These two intrepid cruisers are also serious racing sailors. For years they lived on board and raced on Sunstone, a 40 foot S&S sloop. They had a lot of success with her, including 5 class wins during 8 different Fastnet races. Then, in their words, “While we were both working full-time, we had little time for cruising, though we managed brief visits to most of NW Europe’s favorite areas. In 1997, we took a long-planned step toward a life fully committed to sailing. Tom took early retirement from his job as Principal of Portsmouth College, a sixth form and community college in Portsmouth, England, while Vicky resigned from her post as Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Social Science at Southampton Institute. During the year, Sunstone also received a very thorough refurbishment and re-equipping to adapt her for her future as a world cruiser.”

Tom and Vicky have been removing all their cruising gear from Sunstone in preparation for this race. We wish them the very best. They are hoping for strong winds. I think they may get them as the weather right now, ahead looks quite unsettled, especially at the far south of New Zealand.
They, like many offshore sailors, think of New Zealand as their homebase and their reason for rushing back was to take part in the first- ever, two-handed around New Zealand race. We are both amazed at their determination as they are in their 60’s, using a boat that is almost 50 years old and going up against a fleet of youngsters in light weight race boats to sail 2000 miles with only three stop overs, heading down into the southern reaches of the roaring 40’s. Larry raced in the Round Britain two handed race back in 1974 and his feeling was Tom and Vickey do have some advantages. They have always cruised two handed, so their boat is better set up for being handled solo during night watches than any of the other entrants. They are well used to sailing offshore at night, they are probably the only boat using a windvane as their main steering devise and windvanes steer a boat to windward amazingly well – sometimes as well or better than an alert helmsman. And finally, Sunstone is a truly proven boat – if any of the gear hasn’t broken yet during 170,000 miles of voyaging under their stewardship, it isn’t going to break now.

They have a lot of interesting reading on their website at www.sunstonesailing.com. We’ll be following them on the two handed round New Zealand at www.ssanz.co.nz. The race starts on February 25th.

One of the very first magazine articles I ever sold was called; People are the bonus of Cruising. Visits with Tom and Vicky and the other sailors we encountered this summer confirm this opinion.
May spring or autumn, whichever is approaching in your hemisphere, bring pleasant weather and fine plans.

Lin and Larry Pardey.