This page will contain longer articles on the adventures and escapades of TSPYC members - feel free to contribute.
Kevin Gunn and Clare Vale, Gunsmoke:
Another day on the ocean in our learning curve!
A slightly-battered skipper and a slightly-tattered Gunsmoke, August 1993. Read on to find out how it all came about.
  Gunsmoke spent a year in New Plymouth and the only reachable short trip away from there was to do an overnighter down to the Marlborough Sounds. One trip was taken in August 1993 (a rare clear break) and the forecast promised 20knots SW easing when the time came to run home.
With 3 on board we left Waihinau Bay in calm seas and motored for Pelorus Heads – wind dead ahead with motor and headsail. We started sailing with autohelm on and wind increasing.
After tea, the seas started to get big so Kev took over the helming. We were leaving the shelter of the South Island and the seas were now 3 metres with 35 knots SW on the beam. Took the main down, took in ¾ of the headsail and turned the motor on to give us some push.
Clare and Errol were quite sick now and it started to rain. We were hit beam on by a big breaking sea that came out of the dark, laid us over and Kev was thrown into the starboard corner. The harness tether held very well but was obviously too long. We had gone over about 130 degrees and the tea bags that had been in the sink put stains on the cabin top. By now the seas were 7 metres with 50 knots of SW and you could hear them breaking around us. Kev had shortened his lifeline by winding it around the headsail winch, which held him very nicely in place but the next breaking wave to lay us over and somehow managed to wash his farmer brown wet weather gear and trou around his ankles.
Kev remembers thinking: “Hey the masthead light works underwater but how do I get these pants up with one hand?” It was bloody cold so Clare got a harness onto a reluctant Errol and pushed him out into the cockpit to hold the helm while Kev got his sodden pants up again.
A further wee problem now became obvious as on the last knockdown the top had slid off the engine box and the charts fell off the chart table and into the engine. Clare was busy flicking the charts out from the belts and pulleys. Fortunately the chart we were using wasn’t damaged otherwise we would have had a GPS and no chart to go on.
Errol had also hit his head and seemed concussed. Clare had to straighten things up and strangely was feeling a little bit better – being busy helps.
We were now 10 miles off the coast from Waverly but 4 miles to the SW of us were the Graham Banks which come up to 10 metres – didn’t want to think what the seas would be like over these but this was where the gale was trying to push us!
Kev couldn’t see a bloody thing due to his glasses being smudged with salt water. We could hear the odd sea break and roar towards us but couldn't see it. The compasses are swinging all over the place – not that anyone could see them anyway. Clare kept calling directions out to Kev from the GPS inside as every time Gunsmoke got knocked down she was spun around. Kev hated Clare kept telling him to go more to weather all the time, as it is so much harder!
We got knocked down again this time destroying our spray dodger and taking out most of our weather lee-cloths but worst of all this time our motor stopped. Kev pulled out a little more headsail giving me about 6 feet. We could make way but were worried were being blown leeward into the Graham Bank. We had to hold a bearing out to Maui Platform to clear Cape Egmont. At this stage Clare put out a “Pan Pan” as we were in extreme conditions. Errol by then had come out of his comatose state and found that the ‘On/Off’ lever on the engine had fallen over to ‘off’ we had gone over that far that gravity had turned the switch off. The motor started. The “Pan-Pan” was answered by Taupo Maritime Radio who’d put out a call to any boats in the area and the Maui A tender boat called to say that they would be standing by. It was lovely to hear someone on the radio but not too sure of what assistance they could provide.
Day light arrived and we could see the Maui A platform and tender at the top of the swells. It’s true that things always look better in daylight and now we were clear of Cape Egmont we were able to alter course and head direct to New Plymouth with the 7m seas dead astern. Don’t look back!
At 15.00 hrs Errol had recovered and took over the helm from Kevin who was buggered, 22 hours at the helm. We had to massage his legs so that he could move and get into the cabin.
The seas did not abate they were the biggest we have ever seen around the Islands off New Plymouth. Made Port Taranaki 1700 hr with the boat a mess but all superficial with no damage to rigging or hull though we had lost our inflatable off the deck during the night.
All our problems had been caused by a low that had been moving off to the east suddenly reversing its direction and pushed back onto a fast moving high compressing all the isobars.
One good thing to come out of this was to show us that Gunsmoke could handle it if we could.
Hilton and Melva Ward, Spindrift11:
Thoughts from Spindrift11, on South East Alaska and British Columbia after having spent two years cruising there in our yacht Spindrift11.
A Laurie Davidson-designed 9.6m masthead sloop built in 1974 to race under the IOR rule for the Half Ton Cup and was home to Hilton and Melva from 1993 till 2008. Article reproduced from the Parrot, 2009:
Like mountains piercing the sun and grey-green monocolour spruce and hemlock. Oyster leaf, beach greens, foraging, beachcombing, snow sliding, mountain walking and the muskeg that our Port Alexander friends, Mike and Mim, showed us. Our book of plants of the Pacific Northwest which knew intimately after two years on the coast. Bear trails, deer trails, mink tracks and whales. Birds, eagles and our friend Raven, black bear, brown bear. We have seen them. Seen them at home. We saw bears turning stones for crab and another smelling our muffins
baking from Spindrift11 in Bughouse Bay, Drury Inlet. Beaver, wolf,
raccoon, rabbit, red fox, sea otter, river otter and even mice, ducks, scotters, loons...
All our friends. The plants feature in our story too; their autumn leaves, buds, catkins, flowers, colours. All of Nature has been ours. Of course we met people. Lots of lovely people.
So many places: Sitka, Juneau, Tenakee, Port Alexander, Myers Chuck to Vancouver, Namaimo, Victoria, Sydney, Mystery Harbour, Pleasant Harbour in Hood Canal, Ucluelet, even Klemtu and more and more...
We lived there. It was good. Nature was good. Snow and ice were good. Mountains were good. The cold was good. Too much rain was not good. Fog was fog.
Sometimes the afternoon or early morning sun caught a mountain peak just right or penetrated the perfect misty stillness of a quiet anchorage. We have seen that sort of beauty. We have seen the rainbows standing guard at waterfalls and swirling mists rising from the forest. All breathtakingly beautiful but no more so than the jet black cat taking a long stretch in the sun at the Silva Bay Marina in the Canadian Gulf Islands.
Many more photos - of both sunny and icy climes - can be found here.
Bruce Packard, Dan 'n' Me Too:
The late Bruce Packard provided two very entertaining articles to the Parrot, which have been .jpg) scanned and are downloadable as pdfs below. The first, Notes from the South Pacific, focuses on his the final leg of his journey to New Zealand (from Honolulu onwards) and then a later cruise back to the Pacific Islands. The second is, in Bruce's own words, a love story.
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