Man and Six yo Daughter do Tasman Sea n 21 ft cat

[Alan Langdon]

Probably why I lost 8 kilos in the 27 days.
Short naps @ night.
On deck sleeping but not a lot.
The weather was favourable....Occasional windless spaces ...maybe 6 to 12 hours on three or four occasions without thinking about this to much.
Time to rest, tidy up, prepare for the next stint, prepare food, do some "schoolwork", Not being able to run much sail area due to steering issue .
The weather was fairly atrocious on a few occasions...Breaking seas, strong winds. , swell from three angles peaking occasionally and being without a sea anchor and beam on we copped a few ..Starboard hull to windward as we were "living" in the port hull and the breaking waves lifted the starboard hull clear of the water a few times...A few to many for my liking !!!
And the waves breaking through on the inside of the port hull during these time were not pleasant either..
I spend a lot of time in the hull during the bad weather learning patience and as my daughter said ..."Inner peace" Seemed like forever but probably three days once and other periods when I pulled the sails down in the evening with strengthening winds and did not raise them again until the white caps disappeared.
I made several "rules" such as pulling down sails when white caps started appearing everywhere. With the one rudder we were always reefed anyway.
My daughter was never on deck alone..Hat and jacket in the daytime and torch at night when on deck. Both of us.
We wore our lifejackets when crossing the Kawhia Bar which have harness type attachments as well which were attached at that time.
Being such a small craft we always knew were the other person was.
Whistles and knocking was normal. Lots of talking as well as lots of quiet times.
I sat on a bucket inside the Hatch a lot to reduce my windage and to steer ...a system of lines with constant forward and backward scanning ...
Memories..

[Alan Langdon]

While on the way to the Bay of Islands the starboard rudder was broken and rendered useless.
I decided to stay offshore and await a weather window to enable repairs be carried out.
This unfortunately failed to eventuate.
Steerage was limited.
Sailing was experimental.
Safety was paramount.
Australia was the best option.
For several reasons.
I made the decision to make for Australia.
This was the best option.
Apart from the rudder breaking the trip was relatively uneventful.
No emergency ever existed.
There was no distress
No distress signals or flares were used .
We completed our voyage under our own power until tied to the wharf in Australia
I immediately approached the authority's alerting them of our arrival.
I ensured the safety, health and wellbeing of both myself my daughter/crew and our vessel.
At all times.
No problems.
As no distress signals or flares were used and no emergency ever existed I did not expect any search or otherwise to have been initiated.
Me, my daughter/crew and our vessel were sound and eminently capable of coping with much much more than was required.
The choice of directions which we could sail was always governed by the wind.
And our steerage system .
The vessel was able to sail well on several angles off the wind.
The sail area was also reduced due to the steering limitations.
Wind was best on the starboard.
I considered many different factors as one always does when sailing.
Perfectly normal.
I always had and made choices.
As the vessel and all who sailed upon her are safe and sound I consider the voyage although unexpected definitely not exceptional.
Please provide any questions regarding any aspects of this that perhaps are unclear.
Sailors and other seafarer's or these that perhaps are somewhat familiar with the ocean may have questions or opinions.
Please provide these.
I also encourage these persons who do not sail or put to sea to put their queries forward.
I am confident my decision making process and choices I made were logical.
Australia was the biggest and safest target.
When I chose to make for the Australian coast we were approx midway between NZ and Australia.
I did not wish to go North with the broken rudder as cyclones are seasonal and can get as low as the north of NZ.
The prevailing direction for weather systems ie...anticyclones and depression's is west to east across the Tasman.
And much more information which I have accumulated over many years was used to make calculated decisions.
I planned for the worst and hoped for the best is a saying I like.
Also a good friend once told me regarding living and sailing on a boat....don't race the house.
So despite wanting to complete our voyage as quickly as possible I kept telling myself this.
Don't race the life raft.
My sense of humour.
I appreciate that laymen will have questions I can not anticipate.
Many interviewers have asked questions since our arrival which have amused me.
What was my biggest feat.....
Deep vein thrombosis.
I was unable to move around a lot while steering.
And my body was windage which I was limiting as much as possible.
Please help me to convey the understanding I have about our sailing voyage.
We both found inner peace, patience and much more on our trip.
The whales....birds....stars....squid's... Plural of squid?
Clouds...dolphins...moonlight......
.....dark cloudy nights...sharing .....caring...talking....brushing each others hair.....Peace.
The constant hand steering required while under way.
Shared between us.
Mostly myself.
The times spent waiting for the wind to drop....and the seas to ease... Learning Patience.
Love.
( This is something I wrote not long after arriving in Ulladulla...)

[Alan Langdon]

The pod of whales that kept us company for 500 miles or so.
In the morning they would be around for a while...
And I'm the late afternoon they would reappear.
Not to close.
Sometimes we could only hear them as we are quite low on the water and with a bit of swell our view is limited.
Que would happily talk and wave to them and there were some juveniles in the pod.
One morning after the whales and Que had been communicating with breath , movement etc Que went down below to continue writing and drawing.
A whale swam over to our port hull and gently bumped its head on the inside of the hull

Right beside where Que was.

"What's bumping on our boat dad?"
She asked....
I don't know I replied/lied.
The whale was as long as our boat I guess.
Later I told her what it was that had been bumping the hull and also told her that I had been a little nervous.
Impressed but still a bit nervous.
"Don't worry about my brothers and sisters" she told me.
"They will look after us".
A pair of albatrosses also visited us for many days.
The last day we saw them they both landed in the water just in front of us and stayed sitting there until we could see them no more.
The only time they did this.
The evening flypast was sometimes so close they were just beyond reach.
Not that I tried but coming so close was a really good feeling.
Eye contact.
We both whistle and talk to all the birds who visit and travel along with us.
In the storms and in the calms and when sailing.
Home on the sea.
Nice
(and this was also written after our arrival in Ulladulla )

[fatherchronica]

You do not know what you would do until you are in some situations. My ex-wife was a terrible single mother who often left my kindergarten aged son home alone for 2 nights at a time while she partied and because it was a long time ago when only women should raise children it took me 6 years and over $100,000 to win custody, which I wouldn't have tried to do if he did not cry to not go back after visitation and beg me to let him live with me and my 2nd wife. I did not even know the extent of his misery for several years until I got my 8th, count em 8th, lawyer who was secretly recommended by the court ordered psychiatrist, and he had me hire a detective who videotaped my son missing the school bus and trying to walk 3 miles to school along a snow covered highway, more than once after getting himself ready for school home alone. You go crazy. When I met my 2nd wife I was prepping a 26 foot converted Navy whaleboat ketch with the thought of taking my son away, but she convinced me that later on in life he would resent me for taking him from his mother. I sympathize with this guy, but the post about him probably having greatly restricted visitation from here on is likely true. For me being a non-custodial parent the saddest thing that happened in my life until 40 years later when Jimi, my Labrador Retriever died in my arms. Later in life I couldn't believe I wasted so many years raising children when I could have been raising Labs. But that is just my terrible sense of humor speaking, probably. This article is not the first time I have heard of this guy or maybe this is the same article from awhile back.