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2016
27
Sep
2016
27
Sep
Sailing eastward from Tonga to Tahiti: summary
Whenever other cruisers heard/read of our journey from Tonga to Tahiti eastwards, the reaction ranged from horror to awe. ‘You’re going in the wrong direction!’ In times when sailing ships were the only means to transport people and goods across the oceans they went all directions during all seasons, but it seems that during the past few decades a consensus has been laid down that… Continue reading »
2016
26
Sep
So much to do
At the moment our days are just not long enough for everything we have to do. After the long trip Pitufa needs quite some attention, the boiler was leaking and Christian removed the electric heater element that was rusted through (followed by happy bilge cleaning as 25 litres of freshwater had drained onto the engine twice). Yesterday was a 9 hour Pfaff-day (that’s the name… Continue reading »
2016
25
Sep
2016
24
Sep
2016
16
Sep
Pitufa’s Wind Atlas and Windrose Browser
Check out our Atlas of Prevailing Ocean Winds! As a convenient alternative to pilot charts, our site provides an interactive wind atlas and windrose browser. Unlike classical pilot charts, this atlas is based on satellite data (uniformly-sampled, unbiased), insofar similar to Jimmy Cornell`s Ocean Atlas (but that one is on paper and pricey…). We visualize world-wide ocean wind data from the SeaWinds scatterometer onboard the… Continue reading »
2016
16
Sep
Pitufa back in French Polynesia
After a brief excursion west to Tonga, Niue, and the Cook Islands, Pitufa is back in French Polynesia.
2016
16
Sep
Back in Tahiti
Last night we reached Tahiti at 1 o’clock in the morning after a very rough ride with 20 to 30 knots of easterly wind. In the lee of the big island seas and wind calmed down quickly and as it was a moonlit night we decided to sail in through the pass south of Taina Marina. Even with a GPS track and lit markers it’s… Continue reading »
2016
14
Sep
Grey and grisly
It looks like this journey is going to end like it started a bit over a month ago: squally, windy, rainy, grey and nasty. Anyway, in between we were quite lucky, so no need to complain. 97 nm left as the white tern flies! At last we fly as directly as all the before mentioned birds. We made enough easting when we had the chance… Continue reading »
2016
14
Sep
Quiet again
After almost two days we’re finally sailing again. What a relief to turn off the engine and just listen to the gurgling of the waves along the hull and the soft, well-known creaking sounds of the sheets and blocks. The wind is still just a breeze, the sea’s calm and we enjoy these hours of perfect sailing–soon it’ll pick up and we’ll be pounding into… Continue reading »
2016
13
Sep
Motorsailing
We try to avoid motoring whenever possible, as it’s a waste of diesel, the noise downstairs is deafening and the engine heats up the boat. At the moment the wind is very light (about 8 knots), but it would be enough to keep the boat going slowly, so usually we wouldn’t start the engine at that point. However, the grib files show that instead of… Continue reading »
2016
12
Sep
Lively Ocean
Today we’ve had beautiful light-wind sailing with calm seas, small fishies jumping, big fishies jumping after them and birds hectically catching fish. We also caught a tuna in that bruhaha. Very often we feel like in a lifeless desert out on the ocean, so today was a pleasant experience. Unfortunately our ancient gennacker blew out just a few minutes after we had set it (a… Continue reading »
2016
11
Sep
Comfy sailing
During the night the wind shifted north and then even to the northwest remaining light, so we had a very quiet, restful night with nothing to do but listening to audio books, munching chocolate pudding and taking a look around every 10 or 20 minutes. Maria, the westernmost Australe Island lies north of our course, so we’re officially back in French Polynesia. 400 nm to… Continue reading »
2016
11
Sep
Fatigue of material
We had good sailing today, finally making miles towards the destination. On this trip material fatigue has started showing. Apart from the crack in the boom yesterday we had smaller things breaking. A shackle that holds down the running backstay snapped, today the sheet of the foresail ripped–nothing spectacular and all things that were quickly repaired, but it shows how hard the past few months… Continue reading »
2016
10
Sep
Repairs and detours
I was catching up with sleep this morning when a shout had me stumble up on deck in record time: ‘The main boom’s broken!’ We quickly got the sail down and then Christian showed me a long vertical crack in the boom, just above the place where we had repaired it in Panama with an aluminium plate and rivets. While I still desperately checked on… Continue reading »