trip report solomons to bali with the ogre

[ex TL systems 63]

12th May me and big boy aka crewogre aka Shrek flew out of Auckland at 6am for Honiara via Brisbane, our Top Secret mission to meet the owners of a 42 ft Fontaine Pajot Venezia catamaran and deliver it from Gizo Solomon Islands to Benoa in Bali, a downwind trip of some 2600 nm. Shrek.s motivation was a paid sailing holiday mine was unpaid but expenses covered and a chance to get some more off shore experience and to see what a typical mid size ex charter cat is like to sail on a long trip, as I may in the future want to buy something similiar to sail back to NZ from off shore.

So at the end of day one we were ensconced in a fairly modest by Nz standards hotel on the Honiara waterfront with an early morning flight booked to Gizo at 8 the next morning.

Arriving at the domestic terminal early the next morning to get our connecting flight to Gizo we were surprised to be told that the flight was overweight and that us and around 20 others would have to wait for the next flight at 3pm, no explanations or apologys in fact there was nobody on the counters to explain anything, anyway there was no point going back to town as we had no where to go and our bags to look after so we settled in for a long wait. Later in the day we found out that another group of people that knew the airline staff but were not booked on the early flight had turned up before us and so we were bumped, the locals simply accepted it as the way things go so we just went with the flow and relaxed, taking turns to either stay with our luggage [shrek was particularly concerned with the safety of the 6 kgs of cheese he was carrying from NZ for the trip] or go for a stroll around the airfield area.

Finally we got away at 3pm after a competitive sprint to the plane to get a window seat [most of the other passengers were aid workers from Aus or NZ going away for a long weekend to various resorts to indulge in diving with sharks and other pastimes].

It was worth the struggle to get a window seat, the islands and lagoons we flew over on the way to Gizo were mesmerising and it would be great to have the time to return and explore in my own boat someday.

In Gizo the airfield is on its own island and Tim the owner was waiting with the dinghy to pick us up and take us to the cat "Top Secret" some 2 km away anchored off the township.

Gizo was a Japanese seaplane base in WW Two and the harbour is surrounded by rusting hulks and sunken ships which it seems is common throughout the Solomon islands.

So after dropping our luggage and the cheese on the boat and picking up Megan the other owner we were off to see Rose at Immigration who was waiting to close the office for the coming long weekend. Paperwork done but we would still have to wait untill Tuesday to clear out as Monday was a public Holiday.

Over the long weekend we gave the hull a scrub, ferried fresh water out to the boat in the dinghy , farewelled the owners and bought the limited supplies that were available locally.

By noon on Tuesday we were on our way mostly motorsailing in light winds for the next 4 days averaging only around 4 knots or 100 miles a day , we were starting to expect a long trip and perhaps a need to change our return flight dates.

In the occasional squalls with 20 knots we were getting around 1/3 windspeed with main and jib so 5 knots in 15 , and even motoring with the 27 hp Yanmars was a little disapointing, one motor around 4 and both motors only 5 knots, I suspect that higher pitch props would help as the motors seemed to rev freely and were never under strain. With a long way to go we needed to conserve the 420 litres of fuel we had and found that with the screecher and main we could get a little over 1/2 windspeed or around 5 knots in 10 which was not so bad.

By day 5 we had dropped down into steady and stronger SE to E winds and for the next two weeks as we went past PNG , Northern Australia , Torres Strait and Timor, we were blessed by constant tail winds from 15 to 30 knots and daily runs of around 150 miles. We used most every variety of downwind sailing from jib only to wing and wing , screecher and gennaker.

Days were hot and sunny ,some nights wet and windy with midnight squalls that would sneak up behind us with 35 knots of wind and 60 degree windshifts, we saw flying fish , dolphins , whales, a big scary log floating vertically in the water, lots of ships around Torres strait and fishing boats as we approached Indonesia. We even saw some fish that looked like tuna and jumped vertically 10 or 15 feet out of the water before splashing back down.

In the middle of one midnight squall I noticed that the steering wheel was no longer being moved by the autopilot, further investigation revealed that the wires had come off the quadrant and the autopilot was still steering us on just one rudder, in the end a fairly easy fix which could have been avoided if we had tightened the wires earlier.

Somedays we would be surfing at up to 10 or 12 knots and I even saw 15.9 on the gps at one stage but after 24 hours our best total was 174 miles or a little over 7 knots and this would have been aided by the favourable south equatorial current going the same way as us.

Australian Maritime flew over us on 5 occasions while we were in their waters and spoke to us on vhf, they however did not respond when Crewogre asked them to deliver pizzas with extra cheese as he had eaten his 6 kgs in the first week and was suffering withdrawal symptoms.

The final 3 days to Bali we started to run out of wind again but we had enough fuel left to run both motors and keep up around 120 miles a day arriving in Bali after 2674 miles in 20 days exactly [ well close enough] or 5.57 knots average.

We had 2 days in Bali before our flight home so had a chance for a little shopping eating and checking out what for us is a very different culture. The anchorage at Serangen was interesting with huge Indonesian sail boats and one sitting on the bottom with topdeck masts and sails protruding out of the water looking like the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.Serangen village was pretty relaxed with friendly local people keen to sell the 2 white guys with bandaged legs some trinkets or sarongs as souvenirs.

Ah yes the bandaged legs, soon after leaving the Solomons we both came out with tropical ulcers that we treated with various ointments etc from the boats first aid supply without much luck, on the Air NZ flight home we were given special treatment by the air hostesses, [seems that they all started about the same time I joined the Fire Brigade and are in no hurry to leave , they seemed to all be 50 plus but still doing a great job and very friendly] and with a less than full flight had 3 seats each.

We did 4 hour watchs through the day and 3 hours at night, took turns to cook and clean up, didn,t get grumpy with each other, repeated the same storys a few times each , redesigned the boat we were on , our current and previuos boats and planned our ideal boat. For me the Venezia 42 was pretty comfortable and roomy but a little too slow, my old cat TL Systems in the same condition would I am sure average on most of the days we had around 10 knots with less sail area ie in 20- 25 knot NE we took 2 hours from kawau to North head with no main , just the jib, that must be 25 miles . My ideal boat , maybe Catabatic with a roof and streched to 45 ft , or sundreamer with some more accomadation , or 888 with a much bigger cruising pod or Mc Moggy but at a price I could afford.

I even redesigned Ogres Black Panther for him , chop the 9ft draught keel and ballast off, replace with a centerboard and two amas, perfect a 64 ft cruising tri!

Arriving back in Auckland 8 pm Ogres wife and family were there to take him away to a cheese dinner and my mate Neville had driven up from New Plymouth to get me on the condition that I take him sailing for the next few days on my cat Catabatic , so by 10pm i was back on the water again. The next 2 days we sailed to Kawau and back, the difference between the 2 cats quite extreme , the Venezia at 6 knots was powered up and felt like it was going fast, noisy and a lot of wake, Catabatic at the same speed felt like it was hardly moving and gets to that speed in very light winds. The last night we were anchoring in the mouth of the Tamaki river just before dark, I said to Nev as we were still easing ahead in neutral, "depth is 2 metres .,keep an eye on the depth as long as it doesn,t drop too much. So I,m dropping the anchor and Nev is saying, "its 1.2 now its .8 ! I look around at the nearby keeler on a mooring and think this does not seem right and go back to the cockpit to check.... Nev is reading the speed off the gps instead of the depth from the sounder,,,,,, Hard to get good crew these days! I have photos but will post this first before it disapears somewhere!

[Guest]

Geez - it was 3 kilos and I rationed it to one kilo /week. This from a guy who thinks freeze dried curry is food.

 

But 2600 miles without tacking once was a fun trip.

[idlerboat 116]

Jealous ? me jealous ?...nah I like the rain and cold.

NOT.

As I have said many times on coming back to work for a while when people say "welcome back to the real world"...I reply...."Nope I just left mine"..

Nice write up.

[Mothership 6]

I really must work a little less and stop turning down these trips!

 

Looks very relaxing

[Guest]

Dave's Photos

[Island Time 1,230]

Well done guys! Interesting your thoughts on the boat about same as mine... good living space, but too slow for a cat!

 

Cruising around the Solomons is great! But not for those who need shopping malls - it's pretty elementary, except for Honiara, which is a bit better. We spent about 6 weeks coming down thru the Solomons, N to S, last year. The lagoons are really cool, but navigation can be stressful (charts are unreliable, and there are Crocs in Marovo Lagoon, so you have to be careful where you swim. Awesome though, and remote...

 

David, I did warn you there would be a fair bit of motoring up there at this time of year! Not much wind...

 

Oh well, back to reality now!!!

[Guest]

Yep, with both Solomons and Indonesia I saw just enough to make me want to go back and stay a lot longer.I had been in the Solomons back in the late 70's and there has been very little change.

[Steve Pope 243]

Gives me very itchy feet, great cruising the Solomons / PNG , Bougainville, the locals are a bit more heavily armed from when I was there.

Try honey on the ulcers, (manuka) though other types will work as well.

[Pugwash 0]

Can I put my name forward for the next one please?

Fit and healthy, easy to get along with, hard working. Plenty of sailing on trailer yachts but want to get some blue water experience.

[ex TL systems 63]

yes I did think about honey for our scabby supurating sores but the closest things we had was maple syrup, marmalade and treacle which we were using on the pancakes and scones, scones made in the pressure cooker came out real nice though. We did drink some mixed up turmeric powder which is supposed to be good for infection, and at least we got through the 3 weeks without any serious complications, healthwise.

Even though more crew would have meant more off watch time I quite enjoyed the fact that for most of the time you were on watch you were on your own with the other guy down below either asleep or reading, often the change of watch conversation would include " don,t fall off I,m not coming back for you" . Some nice times at night tho with it being super clear and starry and still warm enough to be outside in shorts and a tee shirt for 3 hours. The new smart phone came in handy too with a few hours of music to listen to at times.

[Kestrahl 6]

Gives me very itchy feet, great cruising the Solomons / PNG , Bougainville, the locals are a bit more heavily armed from when I was there.

Try honey on the ulcers, (manuka) though other types will work as well.

 

Great story! Most of those production cruising cats are quite slow and under powered.. Although you wouldn't know that if you talked to the owners, I posted a similar statement on the cruisersforums and got flamed to death...

 

Solomons is pretty good at the moment, RAMSI are doing a great job and I only hope that they can establish a working local police force, otherwise the guns will be dug up and the payback will start once they leave. We also stopped in Buka, Bouganville late last year and island hopped over the top of PNG without any trouble. The county does seem like its on a downhill slide... http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/png-police ... ng-5467881

[Guest]

I've been on a course of antibiotics since I got back, looking good now. I must second TL"S comment about Air NZ - I would cheerfully pay a bit more to fly with them again, the cabin crew were terrific (food wasn't bad either)..

[smithy09 50]

Great report! Thanks a lot. I'm very surprised at the cat's speed. Maybe it was just so fully loaded with cruising gear that it didn't have a chance? Even the Marshall gets better averages than that, complete with cruising gear... I bet Bad Kitty or P'zaz would manage much better averages than that..

[Guest]

They did have 8 surfboards and enough fuel to motor to Fiji.

 

Also I promised a plug for Hire a Holden in Christchurch who supplied a shiny new satphone that did sterling service (I sold a house from the middle of the ocean) at very reasonable prices - highly recommended.

[smithy09 50]

They did have 8 surfboards and enough fuel to motor to Fiji.

 

Also I promised a plug for Hire a Holden in Christchurch who supplied a shiny new satphone that did sterling service (I sold a house from the middle of the ocean) at very reasonable prices - highly recommended.

Hire a Holden???

[Guest]

They rent cars, but also epirbs, pbirbs, sat phones and a bunch of other stuff. He's shy but I'll try to get him to give me an accurate description of the business.

[ex TL systems 63]

As to the speed we weren,t pushing it but even when we would have say 6 hours surfing up to 10 or 12 knots we would still end up with 150 for the 24 hours, altho there was a fair bit of junk on board I doubt if it was any heavier than average for a cruising boat as there was only 2 of us, not heaps of food and no spare sails [ 4 sails total] and the water tank was not full when we left. It had fixed props that would have been a drag,and big fixed keels with as much shape as a barn door, it felt like it took a lot of effort to get to 7 knots without a wave giving a push.

Everything is a compromise but I would prefer a lighter and faster cat or tri with centerboards, whereas I am sure the wife would love a fat slow cat with lots of room.Have to remember most of the time on board will be usually spent at anchor.

[rigger 47]

Have to remember most of the time on board will be usually spent at anchor.

 

The faster the boat the more time in anchorages...

[Kestrahl 6]

There are some quick cruising cats out there, but they are the minority. Tim Mumby's Cyber 46 for example. Some French friends of ours averaged 220 miles a day from Palau to Philippines in their Easton 46. Most of the Lagoon's Leopards etc are quite underpowered and not fast unless its blowing 30 knots on a reach. A good example is the cruising races in Tonga on a Friday. Normally when a cat enters it gets whipped but occasionally a fast one turns up that beats everyone.

[smithy09 50]

Everything is a compromise but I would prefer a lighter and faster cat or tri with centerboards, whereas I am sure the wife would love a fat slow cat with lots of room.Have to remember most of the time on board will be usually spent at anchor.

With money being no object, the Catanas would have to be a reasonable compromise wouldn't they? Squid/Ogre had a nice fast trip across the Tassie recently I seem to remember! P'zaz also seems to be a nice compromise, whoever designed that. Bad Kitty doesn't seem to be a slouch either from their reports. Something out of this range of options would be my choice!