Nightshift — North Island Burger King Tour

We are grateful to Stephen and Rachel Hopkinson for sharing their recent voyage experiences aboard the H28 "Nightshift" with us.

For those who don’t know us, my wife Rachel and I had not sailed before we purchased our H28, Nightshift about two years ago. Rachel said she wanted to travel overseas, I thought that travelling by plane sounded a bit mundane so I suggested we get a yacht and sail there.

We looked at about a dozen H28’s and settled on Nightshift as she used to be owned by a marine engineer who fitted her out. She had sturdy fittings all backed by blocks and metal plates and heavy glass, she had long range diesel and water capacity and stainless steel tanks with reinforced rubber mounts. The marine surveyor i used later commented that she was the strongest built H28 he had seen in 20 years of surveying. We thought she wouldn’t take much to get her up to "Category One".

Ian Syme taught us to sail and over the last two years we have lived on board and spent copious amounts of time trying to improve our sailing skills, attending eoastguard courses and working the boat up to "Category One’.

We cruised around Tasman and Golden Bays, the Sounds and had been to Mana, so we decided it was time for a bigger trip as a shake down for the yacht and us. We are both from the South Island so we thought we would circumnavigate the North Island to see a few new places. After much organising with work we got two months off, had a windvane steering unit fitted (nicknamed George) and left on 1 February 2001.

We got to French Pass as the tide was at peak flow but in the right direction. We normally wait for slack water but I was feeling keen and was rewarded with a bouncy, twisty ride as we were flushed through the narrows and into Admiralty Bay. We stopped for the night on the club mooring in Chenytree Bay. The next day Cook Strait had a boisterous forecast so we went along to Jacksons and went through Queen Charlotte Sound into Ton’ Channel. We had fun trying to get the anchor to dig in heavy weed on the bottom until I read a tip in the cruising guide that said to jerk it in rather than gently drag it to stop it getting fouled with weed before it could dig. This worked and a peaceful night was spent in one of the bays near the head of Tory Channel. The next day the forecast for Cook was N/W 3Oknots and Castle Point N/w 25 knots, this sounded OK as I wanted a bit of wind to help us around Cape Palliser, where I had heard yachts sometimes struggle with strong currents. We left Tory Channel in the morning into a southerly 1 metre swell and very light N/W wind. After half an hour we were sailing in 15 knots N/W which continued until Cape Terawhiti when the wind in typical Cook Strait style suddenly increased. We turned into the wind to reef and I put in two reefs in the main, Rach tried falling off the wind to continue sailing but the wind had picked up further, lying Nightshift over and holding her there. I was standing on the leeward deck knee deep in Cook Strait and was less than pleased but Rachel appeared unconcerned and I found myself (for the first of many times on this trip) having to put on a brave face. If the first mate was taking it all in her stride it would not do for the skipper to show any doubt. Rachel casually stated that perhaps I should tie in the reef (no kidding), she then turned me back into wind and I tied it in. So with a P class sized mainsail and a handkerchief headsail we continued with about 40knots of N/W broad reaching at 8.5 knots. This was the fastest we had ever sailed in Nightshift, (funnily enough our previous fastest was also in Cook Strait.) All was well for a while the sea had about two metres of N/W swell, hitting 1 metre of southerly swell. I had timed the passage to have a favourable tide through the strait, but it’s too far to sail to Palliser in 6 hours, even at our faster than normal speed. Just as I was getting comfortable the tide turned and ran against the N/W swell producing sea conditions that could best he described as spectacular. To her credit Nightshift reacted little to waves breaking on her from various directions, cockpit drains coped well and with everything battened down and us harnessed on everything went well.

As we drew abeam of the Cape Palliser light, about 7nm off, it was like someone threw a switch and we found ourselves with no wind in a lumpy sea. Using the main as a dampner we motored for a couple of hours. Heading east as 1 had been advised by sailors, whose opinions I valued, that sea conditions were generally better further out to sea rather than coasting, besides this was supposed to be a shake down for offshore cruising. So with a worsening forecast, which was now predicting N/W 40 knots for Castle Point, we moved off the coast. After a white we got about 15 knots of N/W and continued east until 35nm off the coast where we then started paralleling the coast. The advice I received turned out to be right on the money, we had a lumpy sea with the swell pushing up from stronger winds inshore. Apparently the N/W wind forms a wave action over the mountains on the lower North Island. It hits the sea near the coast and bounces up again with the wind calmer some distance out. This appeared to he what was happening as we never got wind above 20 knots of N/W yet the weather reports to shipping gave the wind speed at Castle Point as 37 knots N/W, when we were 38nm east of there with only I5knots.

After two nights at sea we were approaching Cape Kidnappers and a front was catching up with us so we put into Napier to let it pass. Berthing in Napier was fun with gale force N/W in the marina blowing us away from our berth. Fortunately some friendly fishermen were berthed behind us and with four burly fishermen on the bow and stern lines they pulled us in and made us fast. The new yacht club and facilities are excellent and the locals friendly. One local who owns a wooden 1-128 ketch was most apologetic when he discovered that an H28 had come into his port and he hadn’t been at the dockside to give us a suitable welcome. After a few days without junk food I was in withdrawal so we quickly got a taxi into town and found my favourite restaurant BURGER KING. The next few days were spent sightseeing, eating at Burger King and seeing movies at the local cinema.

The weather wasn’t so flash, the N/W wind stopped and light N/F and rain started and didn’t stop. After 3or 4 days we wanted to be moving on but the weather was still N/F and squalls. (little were we to know that due to the La Nina conditions this was going to set the tone for the rest of the trip). Keen to get to sea again we left Napier in the morning with a forecast of N/E I 5knots with poor visibility and showers. We sailed in about what was forecast until we got seaward of Portland Island. Off Mahia Peninsula. The wind gradually increased and it was time to put away the roller furler and get out the hank on working jib, which is much better going to windward above 2sknots. We carried this for another couple of hours then the wind backed to the North and strengthened. By nightfall we were sailing under triple reefed main and the working jib was replaced with the storm jib, the wind was steady about 35knots Nth. This was the first gale we had ever had to deal with at night, which took a bit of getting used to. Its one thing to play in Tasman Bay gales when I can run into a sheltered anchorage after I have had enough fun, but psychologically this was different. Later that night I realised we weren’t making any progress North and I was wasting our effort beating back and forth going no where. I could either hove too (but I would eventually drift south of Kidnappers again), put into Mahia (which would be sheltered) or return to Napier. I decided to return to Napier as we had blown the tricolour light and using 3 lights to do the job was a bit of a drain on the battery and I wouldn’t get a spare in Mahia. So we turned around and sailed back through the night under storm jib and triple reefed main but making good speed. We only had one bit of excitement. Rach woke me about O200hrs as a large freighter was on a collision course with us. I gibed the yacht as trying to tack with the big seas breaking on the bow is difficult and with such a small main it is flat and can be gibed gently even in high winds. I left the storm jib sheeted where it was so after the gibe it was backed. I secured the helm to leeward and the difference was nothing short of amazing. Despite the gale hoved to like this was almost comfortable. I would have spent the night like this in a much more comfortable manner sailing but I didn’t want to get downwind of Napier. So with reluctance after the freighter slid about 300metres away we resumed sailing and eventually got back to Napier about 100hrs. We had sailed about 115 nm in 25 hours and were back where we started the only consolation was there was plenty of wind and it didn’t cost me anything. George the windvane steered faultlessly through the whole thing with his little storm vane fitted.

I felt a bit better after another local Napier yachtie told me he had once battled for 3 days to get up to East Cape, only to have to come back to Napier. I took another taxi straight back to Burger King to make me feel better.