We have just one month to go before the Short Handed Sailing Association of New Zealand, Evolution Sails Round North Island Two Handed Yacht Race 2020 begins! Victoria & Emily have delivered High Voltage north from Waikawa to Auckland this week. Gaining a lot more essential boat testing & training time along the way. With…
My eyelids were getting heavy… It was about 1am. Night watch, a stunning calm night, phosphorescence glittering in our wake, and the blinking distant light of Cape Campbell in the distance. I was motor sailing Wildwood on our (almost) annual pilgrimage 183 miles north from Lyttelton Harbour to the Marlborough Sounds for the summer holidays.…
What does the word “discovery” mean to you? Back in school in the 1980’s we were taught that Captain Cook “discovered” New Zealand. His vessel the Endeavour features on our 50c coin. Monuments to Cook stand in many places that he visited, and even places that he didn’t visit (such as Christchurch) on his travels…
Who wants to sail in one of the toughest, most challenging races in New Zealand – around the North Island two handed? (For those non-sailing people out there this actually means two people – so technically four hands…don’t ask me why as I am not sure either…) Well it seems like lots of people! The…
I can’t remember how many times I’ve driven past the little brown sign on State Highway One – pointing down a lonely narrow country backroad, enticing me with three simple words “Kaikoura Coastal Track”. Every time I’ve either been heading off on another adventure, or racing home to throw some washing in the general direction…
If you are a follower on Facebook, you may have noticed a certain “VM2 Racing” suffix recently being added to the Astrolabe Sailing Facebook page. Well that is because my friend Victoria Murdoch has recently purchased a new yacht called High Voltage, and she has talked me in to doing the Round North Island two…
I think I’d been in Amsterdam for all of 5 minutes before I nearly got run over by a bicycle. Andrew just managed to pull me out of the way, but with all the trams, cars, people and bikes whizzing all over the show, in what feels like a very random pattern I decided I…
After boarding the train in London at Kings Cross Station platform 9 3/4 we clickity clacked our way across a patchwork quilt of farms and villages. Church steeples poked their way out from behind hedgerows surrounded by boxy brick houses. We passed stunning seaside towns and undulating countryside. And after a very relaxing four hour journey…
As I stepped off the plane in Heathrow, a strange sense of belonging swept over me. This was home turf, my birth country. A place that I have only lived for a short part of my life, and that nostalgic feeling came as a bit of a surprise. London is a REALLY long way from…
When the alarm went off at 4.30am, I realised that staying up partying on the boat until 1.30am means you don’t get enough sleep to feel refreshed and ready to go. Will we ever learn? Still it had been a fun impromptu evening which had started with a flight delay in Christchurch, meaning we’d had…
Astrolabe Sailing 