Tonga to NZ with new crew, storms, delays and failures

Departing Tonga

Trying to leave Tonga becamse very problematic with the weather playing a large part in holding us up by causing us to sail up and down the chain of islands. On top of that what we thought would be an easy uneventful trip was not quite as planned either.

Vavau- Nukulofa Vavau

First we diecided to make it easy for our new crew by sailing down to Nukualofa. We had a good uneventful sail past a one of the volcanic islands.

New Crew

A couple of guys from Auckland , Ant and Mike, had decided to join us to help sail the boat back to NZ. Grateful for the help we left Vavau and sailed down to Nukualofa in anticipation of picking them up. We arrived and anchored amongst a bunch of other cruisers at Big Mama only to discover a couple of problems.

Firstly their flight from Auckland was cancelled and they were delayed for a few days which seemed OK at first. The next problem was a significant change in the weather forecasts with talk of 50 knot winds coming through Nukualofa around the time Ant and Mike were due to arrive. The prudent thing to do was to return to Vavau and wait out the weather with the crew flying up to join us.

Retracing our steps we made our way back Vavau and anchored in shelter as strong winds (+30 knots) were forecast up there. Meanwhile on their new flight Ant and Mike arrived in Nukualofa to discover their flight to Vavau had been cancelled but ever resourceful they found some suitable accommodation and as importantly a local with a freezer to store the NZ meat they had bought with them. After two very story days in Nukualofa the crew finally arrived in Vavau.

Filling up with duty free fuel and stocking up with supplies we were good to depart a few days later. Clearing customs we headed off down the channel deciding to anchor for the night leaving early the next day.

Finally Departing

As we headed off the auto pilot decided to stop working which was going to be a bit of a problem. We rely on the auto pilot to steer the boat and only hand steer when manoeuvring. After investigations of power supplies, fuses and other electrical checks it was convinced to work again by tapping the pump motor with a hammer – Perfect. Little did we know but the hammer had to be used everyday until finally it didnt work any more.

Breakfast at Minerva

We arrived at North Minerva reef just after sunrise and went through the entrance for a look. It was a gray windy day and the water was not very warm but our hardy crew and the captain decided to go for a swim. An opportunity to give the bottom one last clean before heading to New Zeland.

Hew wisely decided not to swim and instead cooked a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, hashbrowns, tomatoes which was gratefully devoured by a now chilly crew. An extended visit did not seem very appealing so after breakfast we up anchored and continued south.

Assisting a Demasted Yacht

The night after leaving Minerva we heard a call on the radio from a dismasted yacht ” Ruffian” asking for diesel. It turned out to be friends we had met in Vavau. As they were nearby we shadowed them until daylight then went over to see them. They had had the rigging replaced in Guatemala less than 12 months ago and it had just folded up in front of them. Luckily no one was hurt but they were in shock.

At this stage were we still sailing close to Jamie and Sophie on Zipper and they also stopped to lend a hand. Zipper was to have further adventures after we parted rescuing the entire crew off another boat a couple of days later.

We decided that the conditions were good enough to launch our dinghy so we volunteered to ferry supplies and fuel. A new experience bobbing around hundreds of miles from land.

After about 3 attempts at different ways of pumping diesel out of our tanks we managed to fill 3 20L containers of fuel and we also picked up 2 more from Zipper and ferried that across. Ant, one of our crew offered to go with them, an offer gratefully accepted as they had 700 miles of motoring in front of them.

After confirming that he was a Kiwi and so no visa problems and that he didn’t mind eating vegetarian food, we also ferried him across with his bedding. He was later to discover that they were not vegetarian but as they had a small fridge had no meat on board. Unfortunately by the time this was discovered we had already left them with the meat Ant had bought up from NZ still in the freezer on board Eleuthera.

Storms

The forecast was for all high winds at one point but as the two fronts approached and passed it did make for some great sunsets and sunrises and cloud patterns.

After heading west to stay above the weather systems we finally turned south planning to slide through between 2 fronts and get in with perhaps 12-15 hours of lumpy weather. However like all plans, reality was slightly different, the 2 fronts joined up and we had 2 days of 25 knots gusting 35 knots and quite big seas. Sailing with reduced sail we had spray across the boat continuously but Eleuthera handled it well giving us pretty comfortable ride.

In the end both wind generators called time with one stopping completely and the other just running away sounding like it was going to take off. The braking solution turned out to be a line tossed into the blades which wrapped around until the blades stopped.

No 240 volt and then-No Autopilot

Two days out from Whangarei we started to have problems with the internet and we thought it was Starlink causing issues. This was inconvenient in the bad weather as the downloads stopped working. At that stage we didn’t think of the 240 volt system but shortly after comments were made about a burning electrical smell. Closer inspection revealed the inverters had stopped working – the white smoke had escaped. Uncertain as to the cause we didn’t start the generator and instead relied on the 24v system with charging from solar and the main engines.

The next day the autopilot failed finally and would not respond to being hit with the hammer any more. So it was hand steering for the last 24 hours – This was when we needed out fourth crew member. Good practice for the crew!

Navigating down the Northland coast is was a relief to get into the lee of the land which reduced the sea state if not the wind.

Arrival to Whangarei

We arrived in Whangarei at Marsden Cove Marina first thing in the morning. It was lovely and calm and the customs and biosecurity staff were great. They enjoyed coffee and Barb’s ginger crunch like many other border security people elsewhere in the world. We were cleared by lunchtime and then went to a marina berth to try and sort out the electrics. We could not connect as we did not know what the effect would be.

It turned out we had an array of electrical issues and are not sure which caused what. Most likely an indicator light shorted/failed on the main switch board with smoke but no fire thankfully. This possibly caused an inverter to fail but as usual the solution involved liberal use of the credit card.

With a new auto helm pump, new rewired switch boards, a repaired inverter and a new relay on the bow thruster we gained our NZ Electrical Warrant of Fitness and were good to go. Having been operating on an extension cord for a 10 days it was a relief to get everything back up and running again. Barb enjoying being able to plug a heater in 24/7.