Fiji to Australia (2006)

[micoverde]

Last season we added 3000 more miles to little Mico Verde - sailing from Viti Levu, Fiji to Australia (by way of Vanuatu).

Checkout the details here: Mico Verde of Seattle Westsail 32 Yacht Sailing Journals

-Warren

[Limpet]

Write more!

[Amgine]

Warren,

Do you have any position logs of your trip(s)? I'm sort of collecting such data when and as I have time.

[micoverde]

These are all currently back on board the boat at the moment. But we're hoping to put 'em all into a single digital source next season.

[Amgine]

That'd be really great! I'm looking at where sailors actually cruise, what their courses are, in hopes of updating some of the common ocean passages for cruisers.

[micoverde]

cool -- however, most of us do following Jimmy Cornell's world routes pretty closely.

I'm not sure if it's mentioned in his book but this past year we did the 'tropical' route from Luganville, Vanuatu to Bundaberg, Australia as part of the port2port rally. Those WP's are avail at their website.

--Warren
SY Mico Verde
Mico Verde of Seattle Westsail 32 Yacht Sailing Journal Blog

[southernman]

hey Micoverde - met you in the bar at musket cove this year!! We were anchored next to you at Musket Cove during all that wind last year! Our yacht name was Romper. We were the guys with the expensive SSB that had just died!!

[Amgine]

As I'm learning, Cornell follows the Admiralty passages quite closely, probably because they used the largest collection of course data available.

I don't expect much if any changes, since very few leisure sailors make the same passages more than once or twice, so they don't experiment with their routes often. Some places I hope to find some efficiencies are in the Carribean/Gulf of Mexico, the Tasman/East coast of Australia, and the Mediteranian as these are heavily transited by modern sailboats which have somewhat different sailing characteristics than commercial sail craft.

[southernman]

American cruisers seem to use Cornell, where as the others, NZ/Aus/Europe often use local guides. For instance the best guides to Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu etc are not writen by Cornell in my opinion. This may be because of their availability as 'copied' versions that most cruisers tend to swap around. Don't buy many guides before you leave as their will be many opportunities to trade/photocopy guides if that is your bag baby. Otherwise check out a good bookshop in NZ or Aus for the best Pacific sailing guides

[micoverde]

I think the two sides you're talking about serve different purposes. Jimmy provides waypoints for passagemaking whereas local guides take you through reef passes, contain detailed island info etc.

In our experience we mostly use Jimmy's stuff in the planning phases of a voyage and then use local info on the specifics.

[micoverde]

Ha! I definately remember that storm ... quite a ride. I really don't enjoy walking up to a little rain at 0500 that within 15 minutes goes to 45 - 50 kts. BTW - remember that Lagoon cat that was anchored near us? Did you know that it was repossessed in the middle of night while we where there? Lot's of good things happenned in Musket for us but some odd things too like being boarded (and repelling) during a calm.

[starfish62]

It's Elie and Linda from the Rover. We are home now. Elie sold the boat in Australia and made quite a bit of money (30 year old boat...sailed it for four years....doubled our original investment). Now we are looking for a bigger boat to do the whole thing again. We may never make it all the way around as long as the market stays so good for boats in OZ!! It was great to meet you after reading your logs for about a year now.
Linda

[southernman]

yeah remember the cat being repossessed - nearly run us down in our dingy - they had no idea how to use the engines.

Agree with you on Jimmy's guides - good for passage making but you have guys expecting them to be the best local guides and rubbishing them saying they are no good. The fact is they are passage making guides only.

[henkmeuzelaar]

Originally Posted by Amgine

....... I'm looking at where sailors actually cruise, what their courses are, in hopes of updating some of the common ocean passages for cruisers.

Originally Posted by micoverde

cool -- however, most of us do following Jimmy Cornell's world routes pretty closely.........

In my own experience Jimmy Cornell's Westbound Tradewind routes are still quite useful as the old square-rigger downwind routes have not changed all that much .

However, on the Eastbound routes he either tends to ignore, or even actively discourage, any attempt to use the greatly improved upwind capability of modern sailing vessel designs in order to stay closer to the rhumbline towards one's final destination, rather than to make large detours through higher latitudes in order to catch "favorable Westerlies". Of course, this is all vintage square-rigger gospel. However, many of us are no longer sailing these types of vessels.......

So, when Rivendel II returned to the West coast from Hawaii in 1994 and the Pacific High kept moving farther and farther North, we simply turned the corner as soon as we reached 34 degrees North, i.e. the latitude of our home port Santa Barbara, rather than follow the rest of the Hanalei flotilla North to be clobbered by the long procession of polar lows. Sure, close to the center of the high we fired up the iron genny for a day or two. For the rest we were mostly close-hauled and made it home nearly a week ahead of the rest while avoiding the gales they ran into.

When we left Cairns (Queensland, AU) for Vanuatu in 2000 we did not first go hundreds of miles South to Brisbane in order to head for Vanuatu via New Caledonia, as suggested by Cornell, but simply started sailing NE, hard on the wind, while managing to pass South of Rennel and tack into Espiritu Santo from the North. It took us 14 days to cover that 1500 NM distance. Not too bad compared to the 20 days or so it would have cost us to take the extratropical route via Brisbane and New Caledonia. With regard to the direct route from Queensland to Vanuatu Cornell's book said: "don't even think about it" or words to that effect (don't have it in front of me right now).

That same year we left Vanuatu for Fiji and again simply started sailing hard on the wind. The 600 NM took us 5 days. I don't think Cornell's book even mentioned that route.

It is not so much the desire to undertake new challenges that drives us to take these direct upwind routes but also the realization that this is exactly what our medium light cuiser/racer design with fractional B&R rig is built for, whereas long forays through the Variables are inherently more risky in terms of extratropical gale/storm probabilities.

With careful modification and upgrading most larger HunteCateBeneJeanneaus make excellent cruisers for the tropics (as evidenced by the many successful tropical charter fleets) since they enable cruisers to sail both ways; i.e. downwind AND upwind within the Tradewind belt, rather than just downwind while having to sail back through the Variables, as most traditional vessels are doomed to do.

Unfortunately, I don't have Rivendel's precise upwind tracks with me here in the Rockies. However, I promise Amgine I will try to remember to send them when we return from Vanuatu in November.

Fair winds

Flying Dutchman

[Amgine]

Of course, while you're lolling about on your boat you could set yourself down and send them via e-mail or something!</teasing>

Your experiences are pretty much what I'm expecting; modern fore-and-aft rigs are efficient enough to make fast windward passages. The immediate outcry is "a gentleman never goes to weather," which may be true. Upwind passages are not likely to be as comfortable, but a reaching course, taking advantage of favourable currents, needn't be as horrid as many writers have implied as long as you're not hard on the wind. An easier angle up to the equatorial counter current and back down to the destination will probably be quite comfy, and may be faster, than a drop down into deep southern ocean with its gales and cold for many ports of call.

That's part of why I started transcribing the Ocean Passages for the World; they make a good start for updating to modern courses for passages. I hope to have them all online by the end of February; a very cheap navigational resource!