After Moorea it was time to sail to Bora Bora for the World ARC rendezvous at the Bora Bora Yacht Club.  Time was short to get ready for the start of the next leg of the WARC, Bora Bora to Vava’u, Tonga.  Jim and Stewart left and Udo, Jeremy and Nicole joined the crew.  Udo was on leg 1 of WARC several months ago but  Jeremy and Nicole haven’t been on Kincsem before, so there was a lot of introductions to do.

The locals take their canoo racing seriously – this race went right through the mooring field at Bora Bora Yacht Club

 

Rig check was next – I went up both masts to check for problem areas.  I do this before every major ocean passage and usually, I find nothing wrong.  This time, however, I found a chafed radar cable.  It looked like one of the halyards on the mizzen had rubbed against the cable for a long time and cut into the insulation, exposing a couple of the wires.  I had had the impression that the radar wasn’t working properly so here was the smoking gun!   Luckily I have on board a self-fusing silicone tape so I could at least do a temporary repair and the radar has in fact been working a lot better since!

From the Mizzen Mast – BBYC in the background

There were only about 12 WARC boats at the rendezvous because the fleet had been split into two for the next leg.  This is because there are only 15 moorings in Niue, some of which are always out of commission, and anchoring is next to impossible.  Kincsem is part of group 1.  Group 2 will arrive at BBYC once group 1 has started and will start 3 days after us.  There has also been a fair number of boats who have now decided that the WARC goes too fast through some of the World’s best cruising grounds and they have left the rally to cruise independently.  For the same reason, Kincsem will leave WARC in Fiji to cruise to New Zealand and do another season in the South Pacific next year.

 

Even with less boats the reunion was fun – it is always good to speak with the other boats.  We are all very busy repairing our boats in exotic locations so all have stories to tell!  Overall, Kincsem seems to have a lot less problems than most others – even than the other, much newer Amel on the rally, a recent vintage Amel 50 named Pelican.  So far, so good!

 

The four days in Bora flew by and it soon was time to line up for the start of the next leg for our group 1.  Kincsem was first across the line and one of only two boats to do so under sail!   Next port:  Niue, a small island some 1,000 nautical miles away.  The sailing was again easy: within hours after the start the wind shifted to be straight from behind and our “standard” rig of genoa and Code Zero, both poled out, went up.  It’s always a fair bit of work to get everything set but from then on, there is very little to change on the sails. 

Nicole and Udo setting up the starboard pole

Which topping lift is for which pole??

 

We did know that we would be crossing a front on our way to Niue and during the night of day four we did:  thirty knots of wind, torrential rain but worst of all:  MOAT - the Mother Of All Thunderstorms.  There was thunder and lightening all around us for more than an hour and a half.  There were flashes almost every minute and all around Kincsem.  We tried to escape the inferno by motoring first North, then South but nothing seemed to help.  Message from the autopilot: drive unit not found, no wind data shown on the instruments, it was getting worse by the minute.  Ultimately, we decided to motor straight into the wind on the theory that this would get us out of the squall the quickest if it was moving downwind.  It took more than 45 minutes before we were actually through and could see the stars and we put up reefed main and genoa to get underway again. 

 

The autopilot would still work but not on wind direction, only on compass.  Resetting the wind instruments cured that problem and brought back wind data to the instruments and the autopilot but only for a few hours.  One of the displays was definitely no longer working and we struggled with the wind data until we removed that display from the network.  Other damage:  Single side band transceiver is dead; VHF doesn’t have position data, and most troublesome: the depth transducer is not working anymore.    But we don’t use the SSB anyways, the VHF position data isn’t really needed and we have a forward looking sonar which shows the current depth just like the echo sounder.  There may also be other things we have yet to discover but after quite a bit of fiddling, Kincsem appears to be in good shape again.  I have ordered replacement parts and one of the WARC participants will bring them from New York when she visits her son for a few days in early June!

 

After seven days at sea we reached Niue and took a mooring at the Niue Yacht Club.  The mooring was in 35 meters of water – yes, anchoring would be next to impossible!  Niue does not have a harbor and there is not even a dinghy dock where you can leave your dinghy.  Instead, there is a crane on the main dock which is used to lift out the dinghy!  This is quite an operation but leaving the dinghy at the dock is prohibited and there is such limited space between the dock and surrounding reefs that there's no way to anchor the dinghy.  Well, World ARC makes it easy:  we were met by Paul and he showed us how to operate the crane and then drove us uphill to customs and immigration to check in.

Approaching Niue

The dock at Niue; pulling out the dinghy

Mainstreet Niue – look at the street signs!  There are total of 1,700 people who live in Niue.  All Niuens have New Zealand citizenship so many have left for NZ

The mooring field in Niue; Kincsem is being dwarfed by Luminous, a 73 foot carbon sled built in Italy, which has 2 professional crew.  This is not the only boat crewed by professionals.  Not quite the spirit of the World ARC …..

The Mormon church is everywhere!

Kincsem team at the “world famous” Niue Yacht Club, short NYC (move over, NYYC)!

The guy in the yellow vest claimed to be the Prime Minister of Niue.  He said he’d been in power for 8 years (if I recall correctly)

 

 

Given that group 2 was following us from Bora Bora 72 hours later, we were only allowed 72 hours in Niue.  We had planned to rent a car as well as to do some shopping for food.  However, we also had been watching the weather for the next sail to Tonga very carefully and there was a system which looked like it might prove troublesome.  Depending on when we left Niue, it might hit us with up to 35 knots of wind and even Westerly winds – upwind sailing.  Gentlemen, as they say, never go to weather so we wanted to avoid that eventuality at all cost.  When I re-checked the weather at the end  of our first day in Niue – and a lovely party at the Yacht Club – it became clear that we needed to leave earlier than 72 hours after arrival if we wanted to avoid some serious weather.  The morning update confirmed this assessment and we left at 7 am – so no tour of the famous caves and no shopping.  The routing promised less than 25 knots of wind for the entire 270 nms but in fact, we had more than 25 knots for most of the way!  Top wind speed we saw was 39 knots and a very confused sea because of large wind shifts!  But everything was good on board albeit very uncomfortable.

 

At happy hour of our second day out from Niue we rounded the Northern tip of the island of Vava’u in Tonga.  We arrived on a Saturday – after loosing one day on the international date line.  As Tongans take their Sundays very seriously, there was no chance to check into Tonga until Monday so we dropped anchor in a beautiful bay just a few miles from Neiafu, the town were we would check in.  We were not allowed to go ashore before having completed the check-in but we could go for a swim and could invite the crew of another WARC boat, the old S&S Swan 48 Montana, for drinks the next evening.  A good – and long - time was had by all.  Needless to say, we did not arrive in Neiafu at the allotted check-in time of 0830 the next morning….

Flight show put on by the local birds in Murelle Bay.  Apple Photos is not identifying the birds here in Tonga - maybe when I'm back in SFO I will find out what they are!

Excellent meal cooked by Christoph from SV Montana (with the big mustache)