We had steadily reeled in the Salt Lines 6nm lead, as we approached a fishing vessel ahead of us on AIS. With a converging course, we decided to alter our heading to port by 10 degrees and then call up the fishing vessel on VHF 16 to communicate our intentions. The trawler skipper was fairly relaxed and we passed 0.2nm clear of them.

A few minutes later we heard Phil from Salt Lines on the VHF, calling up the same fishing vessel. Not only did he signal his intentions to pass to port as well, but he also told the fishing vessel that he was “in the middle of a race with Silver Fern”.

“Right, that’s official then! Did you hear that?” he said to me. “Phil said its a race and now we have an independent witness!” “Okay game on” I replied, “lets get the kite up on deck, we’ll hoist it as soon as the wind goes right another 10 degrees:”

“We are putting up a kite at night?” came the comment from one of our nervous crew. “It’s just like daytime, but without the sun” I replied with grin. By 10pm we had hoisted the 160 sqm. gennaker and our speed jumped up another 1-2 knots. It was a night of fast sailing in 15-20 knots. I headed off for some sleep after midnight and woke at 6am with the wind gusting to 24 knots. Still comfortable, but loaded up we needed to set up for a gybe to avoid yet another approaching reef.

As we got ready to start the gybe,. I looked at the radar and ver my shoulder to confirm a nasty, grey squall cloud, bearing down on us. “Lets drop the kite” I said to Taku, “that squall looks nasty”. We got set up for the drop and just as we eased the sheet, so Taku could pull down the sock to douse the sail, we got hit by 32 knots of wind. It’s a crazy amount to have a sail this size up in and seeing Taku struggling to pull the sock down, Tony dived in to help and the two of them steadily wrestled it down to the deck.

We dropped the sail, somewhat relieved and put it back in it’s back. The crew had done a great job and narrowly avoided a messy situation. With a top speed of 16 knots overnight, we had a great run and dropped our sails in 25 knots before heading up the channel into the Marlin Marina in Cairns. Salt Lines rounded the headland 90 minutes later and we helped them by taking their lines and tying them up at the dock.

After some lunch ashore, we got started on the clean up before heading to a combined crew, farewell dinner where we shared some great Korean and Japanese food and shared tales of our 10 day, 1,000nm adventure.

David