Voyage Logs 2005
Opua to Tahiti :
Fair weather and weather straight from hell
The R.Tucker Thompson left Opua, Bay of Islands in New Zealand on Saturday 23rd April. On board there were 6 full time professional crew and 9 voyager crew, sail trainees that would learn the skills of sailing a tall ship during the course of their adventure. Drawn from countries afar as Sweden and England, Canada and the USA, Australia and Canada, they will be working alongside the Kiwi crew to sail the ship to Canada.
Deckhand Nick East wrote:
Everything was fine for the first few days. The wind was a consistant 20knots from the south west, basically perfect, and we rode the easy swells covering 160 miles a day plus. Life was good onboard and we laughed at how easy this business of ocean sailing was. However this gentleman's sailing was short lived. On the third day the winds started building till it was consistantly 35knots and gusting forty. We reduced our sail area right down and as we cleared the east coast on New Zealand the swells came to play too. 6m swells may not sound that big but let me tell you when you're in the trough and looking up at them coming it tests your nerves a wee bit. People started getting seasick and life onboard was difficult. Simply moving around was difficult as the ship rolled and crashed through the ocean.
That night's weather fax was a somber occasion. A deep deep low had formed to the south of us and things were only going to get worse as a powerful front roared up from the bottom of the southern ocean. The sail trainees were banned from the deck, hatches were battened down, harnesses were required on deck at all times not just after dark like usual. The storm was comming.
The winds came first. Picking up to a consistant roaring of 45knots and gusting well over fifty. Making it a full gale force system. All we could do was hold tight and run down the face of the building swells, flying only a small stays'l (about 5% of our total sail area) and still moving at over 10 knots. Then the bullys showed up. The swells were an easy 10m and started breaking around us. Not fully but just the tops of them. We took several over the deck and crew were left scrambling to hold fast on whatever they could as we took a temporary soak. We were just holding our own and the mood was nervous and tense. None onboard had ever faced seas this big before and we were terrirfied by its power. The first mate and I were on watch at about 5.30pm and helming was exhausting. Using all my strength to hold her straight as we surfed down the faces. Then it happened. We were comming down the face of a monster, most likely 12-15 m, amd about 100m to port the swell jacked up and broke down its entire face.
To our horror the whole swell starting peaking up right along to were we were and came a crashing down. "HOLD ON!" this time from the mate as I was wrapping my arms around the nearest steel staunchon I could find. The beast came down like thunder from the skys above and I was lifted horizontaly as it engulfed our entire ship. I held my breath and waited for the lifelong seconds to pass before we rose to the surface again and saw the mate lying on the decks next to the helm. Our good ship had taken the beating and shaken the water from her back, rising to fight the next swell.
The Skipper came on deck straight away and gave the order to hove-too. We were no match for this fight so we had to sit it out it the safest way possible. We rounded up into the swells, sheeted the staysil flat and lashed the helm hard to weather. Retired down below and held fast.
The night passed slowly. We sat like that for 12 hours before the swells finally eased enough for us to start making way again. Though they stayed at 6m for a few more days we got back on track and all took with us a strong belief in the ocean's power and dominance, and our own insignificance.
The rest of the voyage never reached such climaxes but was filled with sunny days sailing, eating fresh Mahimahi, telling stories, reading books, and singing shanties (the cook's absolutely excellent, he knows a bundle ) Our first sight of Tahiti was a huge celebration. Its peaks that rise almost straight up to over 2000m are a sight to remember. We reached harbour at 3am on the 10th May and drank till well after sun up.
Next leg: Tahiti to Hawaii
To read about the 2002 voyage, please read Bill Miller's story.
