As usual the storm was not as severe as forecast, at least here in Northland. 500 miles/850 kilometers to the south it caused havoc around Wellington, with land slides and floods blocking roads and stopping trains.
Yesterday and today have been mostly sunny with only passing showers and gusty wind of not more than twenty knots. I rowed ashore both days, partly just for the exercise and to move about, something I didn’t do much on Thursday with GANNET’s hatches closed. The row was harder yesterday than usual. A couple of gusts stopped our progress momentarily. But my muscles needed the work.
The past two evenings have seen me sipping a plastic of wine sitting on the starboard pipe berth, facing GANNET’s center line. Thursday it was raining and last night at dusk the wind became blustery and too cold to stand for long in the companionway.
Sitting on those pipe berths is a fine position at sea when GANNET is heeled and I am looking down at the ocean speeding past just a few feet away. I do not regret my decision to remain in Opua this year. But I miss not making an ocean passage.
The nights have become two sleeping bag nights.
I have three sleeping bags on board. Two light weight summer bags. Carol has sometimes slept on board. And one heavier bag. I’ve been sleeping in the heavier bag. But recently started using one of the lighter bags as a quilt over it. A satisfactorily warm combination. The cabin temperature when I got up this morning was 48°F/9°C.
———
The photo above is not GANNET’s cockpit, but will be.
I have been considering moving the mainsheet traveler from the cockpit bridge to the cockpit sole as many Moore owners have done. Stepping over the bridge is always a hassle and sometimes at sea a hazard.
But as always there are complications. In GANNET’s case the backstay control lines run beneath deck and come up a pipe to the cockpit bridge. The solution is in the pod made by GC Rigging and Composites shown in the top photo.
Weighing only 4 pounds/2 kilos, the pod will fit inside a duffle bag and I’ll bring it back with me when I next return. I’m really looking forward to getting rid of the bridge.
I thank Joe, another Moore 24 owner, for bringing GC Rigging to my attention.
The ‘GC’ is Gilles Combrisson, who along with Karl Robrock, finished first in class in a Moore 24 in last year’s double-handed race to Hawaii.
I know Karl and congratulated him then. I do Gilles now.
GANNET’s cockpit looks awfully clean in the photo taken a year and an ocean ago.
