Two Fuel Drops in One Voyage

The 1,100-mile passage from Tonga or Fiji to New Zealand is known throughout the cruising world as being potentially difficult, if not dangerous. There are no places to hide, and it’s not uncommon to be hit by one or more gales. So the idea is to complete it as quickly as possible.

But having an unusually long and horrible time on this passage are Robby and Lorraine Coleman, who first started cruising with the Columbia 30 Samba Pa Ti out of the Berkeley Marina many years ago. They now own the gaff-rigged Angelman ketch Southern Cross, and for quite a few years have been sailing out of Honolulu. How bad have things been?

"It’s hard to believe, but we got another fuel drop on the same voyage! At 7 p.m. last night, the kind folks on the cruise ship Oceanic Discoverer dropped jugs with 40 gallons of fuel, and a bunch of goodies like eggs, bacon, sausage, tangerines, juice, milk, cookies and more — off the back of their ship in waves that were so huge they buried their bow once. We picked it all up and heaved it all on our heaving deck. We got underway again this morning, and by 10:30 a.m. had motored back to where we’d been 48 hours earlier. The current has been against us for the last several days.

"It’s 54 more miles to the safety of the entrance to New Zealand’s Bay of Islands. We hope to make it by tonight, but we’re very, very tired. All passages are an adventure, but this one has topped them all. We have been out here with not a clue as to when we will arrive, something that’s never been the case before. Our Marquesas voyage was 30 days, but that was twice as long as this one. On this passage we’ve had either no wind, wind on the nose, or howling wind with huge seas. Then we had a 180° windshift that split the main, putting it, as well as our mizzen, out of commission."

Just as you never want to second guess someone’s choice of a spouse, you want to refrain from second guessing their choice of a boat. Nonetheless, if a novice sailor asked us if we thought it was a good idea to join a heavy, gaff-rigged ketch for a trip from the tropics to New Zealand, we’d have to tell them no, not unless they were masochists. Boat design has come a long, long way, both in comfort and performance.