We are currently preparing Wildwood for our delivery trip North. We are taking her up the East Coast of the South Island of New Zealand from Lyttelton Harbour – where we live – to Waikawa Marina, which is nestled in the heart of the Marlborough Sounds. Our aim is to take her up early December…
New Zealand is such a wonderful place for cruising, so when I was approached by Look Insurance Services to choose my favourite cruising destinations in the world – I had trouble narrowing it down to just one! Many international cruisers visit New Zealand. It is a great place to hide out from the South Pacific tropical cyclone…
It was a privilege to have met Laura Dekker today at the launch of her book ‘One Girl, One Dream’ Laura was born on a yacht in Whangarei to her Dutch parents who had been sailing the world. Her mother was a street performer and her father was a boat builder. They eventually moved back…
My current yacht – Wildwood is a Young 88. She was built in 1985 and is one of about 140 boats made in this design. Wildwood is one of about five wooden boats that were built and the rest are made in fibreglass. Here is a bit of history about the Young 88 I have…
That is the question! We we had a great sail last night on the first race of the Oborns Nautical Twilight Series. The evening started with a light southerly which died away to nothing as we crossed the line sideways with the incoming tide. Then a lovely light Easterly filled in and we confidently set,…
What is a Great Circle I hear you ask!? Well I didn’t know much about them either UNTIL NOW! So if you are excited to learn new things about circles and sailing, then please dear reader – carry on and be enlightened! A Great Circle is a circle whose plain intersects with the centre of…
The Ocean Yachtmaster syllabus requires that you know a few things about compasses – how they work and how to use one. The Earth’s Magnetic Field Imagine that inside the earth is a powerful bar magnet. This lies with its blue end toward North and its red end towards South. It’s axis is not exactly…
The forecast was for rain and Southerlies, but the day dawned bright and sunny and thankfully the weather forecasters had it wrong and it stayed lovely all day! The kids all unfortunately deserted us, and so after a mad dash around town delivering them to their various other activities, I headed over to the club,…
Feeling very excited about being nominated for another blogging award! Thanks so much to Fabio from La possibilita di un’isola for the nomination. Fabio and his wife Kate and their cat live on their yacht Tranquility (Love the name!) Head over and check out his blog! So the Leibster award is passed from blogger to blogger –…
Tonight I am starting a Celestial Navigation Course at Naval Point Club Lyttelton. I am a bit apprehensive as I don’t enjoy working with numbers and calculations, so we shall see how we go! I am planning on taking notes and writing them up here on my blog so that I can refer back to…
Astrolabe Sailing 