CRUISING - Harry & Mary's Year 2001 Adventure

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Voyages of Sugar Blues

H&M's 2001 Adventure Index

  We're Off!

  Jan. 21 - Letter from Oz

  Australia to New Zealand 
  on Pat's Cat

  Pat's Cat in Fiji

  Fiji to Vanuatu

  Port Vila to Oz

  Snapshots

January 21 - Letter from Oz

by Harry and Mary Abbott

The drone of the engines changed pitch when we leveled off at 36 thousand feet. With Hawaiian music on the headsets, I reclined the seat, closed my eyes and for the first time since this started, I thought, "This is it. I'm really going back."

Three months earlier, I had opened an e-mail from me mate in Aussie. Here was an offer to crew, captain in name, a Schionning 47' catamaran on a year's round trip up through the islands. I looked out our apartment window. A typically cold Seattle winter wind was blowing and the drizzle showed no sign of slowing. We had only been land bound a little over a year since selling Sugar Blues, our 40' one off tri, but were already well entrenched. I had my 55 Ford pickup to haul around our fun little Farrier 25' folding fangle and I was well underway to catching up on all the movies that I had missed during the past 30 years of cruising. I was already up to Cleopatra.

 But....somehow it seemed to be too good a chance to pass by. So we stuffed everything into a great big box, rented out our place, and hitched a ride to the airport.

Sydney's heat hit us hard after a Seattle winter but at least I wasn't freezing my arse off any more. We first tried to rent an automobile, but found only motorcars for hire. They are similar but have the steering wheel on the wrong side. After a few stops for visits with old mates we arrived in Brisbane, a successful first leg of 600 miles. We finally met Pat, who turned out to be a typically calm and laid back Aussie. Both of us immediately took a liking to him. Our ride turned out to be even more beautiful than the photos. "Pat's Cat" is one of Jeff Schionning's latest designs. It's a Line Honors 14 Meter. In reality it's 14.5 meters or about 47' in Yank speak. I had been warned that it was a performance oriented design with limited space. It turns out to be a wee bit smaller than my old 46" Piver but a step up from Sugar Blues. The big plus, this is a rocket ship. It loafs along at 10 knots with boards down, hard on the wind. 

If there is a down side to this and similar cats, it's the tremendous loads generated by the rigs, and the associated costs. Working out the bugs has been a trying experience for Pat. Within the first year the carbon fiber mast went over the side, total loss of sails and rig. Later, a water tank leak saturated a large area of under-wing built from "featherlite" core.

Pat finally managed a trial run up to New Caledonia and Vanuatu, but even then, the new rotating aluminum mast (can you say al-you-min-ee-um, children?) had to be modified upon return to a fixed base. Hopefully, we are now at the end of the teething problems. Two weeks after arriving we sit, waiting for the back end of a high pressure area to sail out on. The tip of North Island is a south easterly 1100 miles. Our goal is Opua, Bay of Islands, my landfall for the past five New Zealand arrivals. The boat is ready and we are working on achieving same. Pat has equipped the boat with every bit of safety gear that I can think of. Every life jacket has an emergency beacon and on board is a direction finder for locating them. We have radar, a radar transponder, 3 GPSs, weather fax, chart plotter, VHF and HF radio and a satellite phone to call me mum if all else fails. The rest is up to us, I guess. 

Capt. Harry and Mary, the cook

For replies, Mary and Harry's address is:
telapa@whidbey.net