Author: Ulrich Fingscheidt

Too bad, I did not check the windlass in New Zealand. I cannot find a replacement here in Nouvelle Caledonie that matches our anchorchain. So no anchoring at the beautiful small islands. And a long wait for a shipment to arrive.

The chains of mountains of Nouvelle Caledonie look promising. I made it! I really enjoy arriving in a new country where I have never been before.

In crazy waves the hydraulic autohelm started making strange noises. I switched to the windvane in the middle of the night. This purely mechanical device did a better job steering easy when reaching in turbulent waves. I had replaced the delrin bearings of the windvane selfsteering in New Zealand. I had also made a new bolt for the hinge of the watervane. This fixed the issue with too much play in the connection. The windvane now works like a charm. The plan is to order a new hydraulic unit in Nouvelle Caledonie and install it before crossing the Coral Sea to Queenslabd/Australia. The photo shows the windvane in action in pleasant downwind conditions this afternoon.

Modern sailing involves a lot of technology. Multiple sensors, computers, chart plotters and communication devices have replaced sextants and paper charts long ago. The log measures the distance travelled in the water. Today the log showed 22.222 nautical miles (blue mark on the photo). Five years ago, we cast off the lines for this trip. Then, the log showed 3702 nm. So far, I have sailed 18.520 nm on this trip. This equals 34.299 km. That is roughly 1/10th of the distance to the moon.

This fisher switched on his AIS when he was just 2 nautical miles in front of my bow. My procimity alarm went off. Guess what, the callsign on his class B AIS was “@@@@@@0”. The name of the vessel was “Shun663-3-70%” He then went off further southwest to meet all his friends. You see them on my screenshot of their AIS signals close to me, in several rows catching all the fish they can possibly get. The whole Pacific is full with thousands of these fishers, accumulated in large clusters. Check yourself on Marinetraffic. I wish there was a way to stop this industrial fishing!

The fight is over for now. I can actually start enjoying parts of this adventure. I listened to two albums by Ed Sheeran, ÷ and =. Fabulous music, fabulous musician. Also some creativity arose. I wrote a new podcast, will try to record and cut it tomorrow. Have a very nice Sunday morning all of you on firm land!

This is what a well organized cockpit looks like. So many sail changes every day keep me really busy. This for sure is not the barefoot route.

The continuous rain has stopped. Here you see me checking out those nasty squalls. Hopefully, they leave me in peace over night. Finally, the seasickness is over. Now I can eat and drink. You cannot imagine how much I hate these first two or three days of a passage with a rough sea state.

Will this rain ever stop? Upwind sailing with just the jib. So I can sail through the squalls. I am still seasick. Today, I had an apple, my first food in 48 h. I envy all of you who csn sit on the sofa and enjoy life. This here is no fun, believe me.