December 16th 2015, Svenja and I board a plane bound for New Zealand! Leaving cold wintery Germany behind, at least for 4 weeks. We are going to New Zealand to spend Christmas and New Years with my family, and also to be part of my sister's wedding to Caleb. But also, we see Waka Irie for the first time! It was very exciting to watch her come into view as we drove into our driveway in Totara North. "There she is! I can see her!" I open the door and jump out of the car even before dad has brought the car to a stop. And there she was, in all her... Ah.. Neglected glory! Still it was an amazing feeling to be able to finally lay my eyes on OUR boat!
Christmas was like Christmas again! Beautiful warm weather, Family all around and a sail in Whangaroa harbour to a sandy bay and swimming off the boat... Perfect!
In exchange for antifouling the bottom we had the use of my old yacht Star, a Tasman 20, from the guy I sold her to, it was absolute bliss to be sailing again!
After Christmas I spent a couple days going through all the stuff on Waka Irie and taking it all off and storing it in the shed. And went through the boat inch by inch, of course finding more things to fix, but nothing that I wasn't expecting.
And then we went sailing! We sailed Star down the coast, staying a night in the Beautiful Cavalli Islands and then on to the Bay of Islands.
We were planning to stay at least a week cruising there over New Years, but a storm was fast approaching from the Pacific, so we had to sail back to Whangaroa with the storm literally on our tail, which made for some exhilarating downwind sailing in 30 knots, with full main up and no. 2 jib. And our top speed was 9.4 knots!! A record!
On our last week in New Zealand we went down to Whangerei to see Jim, the Alaskan guy we bought the boat off, he still had some gear off Waka Irie in storage that we picked up. He also invited us to come down to the yacht club for a yarn, which was great, and we got to know more about Waka Irie's history.
Peter Deverell
Christmas was like Christmas again! Beautiful warm weather, Family all around and a sail in Whangaroa harbour to a sandy bay and swimming off the boat... Perfect!
In exchange for antifouling the bottom we had the use of my old yacht Star, a Tasman 20, from the guy I sold her to, it was absolute bliss to be sailing again!
After Christmas I spent a couple days going through all the stuff on Waka Irie and taking it all off and storing it in the shed. And went through the boat inch by inch, of course finding more things to fix, but nothing that I wasn't expecting.
And then we went sailing! We sailed Star down the coast, staying a night in the Beautiful Cavalli Islands and then on to the Bay of Islands.
We were planning to stay at least a week cruising there over New Years, but a storm was fast approaching from the Pacific, so we had to sail back to Whangaroa with the storm literally on our tail, which made for some exhilarating downwind sailing in 30 knots, with full main up and no. 2 jib. And our top speed was 9.4 knots!! A record!
On our last week in New Zealand we went down to Whangerei to see Jim, the Alaskan guy we bought the boat off, he still had some gear off Waka Irie in storage that we picked up. He also invited us to come down to the yacht club for a yarn, which was great, and we got to know more about Waka Irie's history.
Peter Deverell