French Poly is a cracker
WE began our trans-Pacific voyage in Wellington, New Zealand and over a twelve month period we planned to sail to French Polynesia then on to Hawai’i before finally arriving in Alaska in summer the following year.
We had left Thailand some years before on board Distant Drummer, our Liberty 458 cutter rigged sloop, so becoming somewhat used to heading eastwards against the prevailing winds, so sailing the wrong way across the world’s largest ocean did not seem like such a crazy idea.
French Polynesia is made up of four archipelagos. The Society Islands, which include Tahiti, are the westernmost island group and are the most developed. The next archipelago, which lies 200 nautical miles to 300nm to the east, is the Tuamotu group; a series of low sand and coral atolls. A further 500nm to the northeast lie the volcanic, craggy islands of the Marquesas archipelago. The Austral Islands are the furthest south and most remote of the island groups.
The usual route from New Zealand to French Polynesia stays south, gaining as much easting as possible in the roaring forties, before turning north to beat up to the Austral Islands on the southeast trades. Wisdom suggests leaving New Zealand in May, however an emergency tooth extraction kept us in harbour longer than planned.
By the time we left Wellington in early June a deep and nasty low pressure system over the Chatham Islands forced us to beat northwards up the east coast of the North Island. Our passage planning was scuppered from Day 1.
At the end of the first week the wind dropped to a light westerly and we had a boisterous sail eastwards riding along the top of the low; but two weeks into the passage another major depression formed ahead of us. We turned northwards once again and endured six days of near gale force winds.
We were hard on a starboard tack with three reefs in the main and storm staysail but. with a quartering sea conditions. were not unbearable. In the fourth week the wind eased, the skies cleared and finally we had some lovely sailing weather.
However we were much further north
