Cyclone alert - will we lose everything?
As sailors, we find ourselves often at the mercy of the elements and a lot more intune with the weather, often checking forecasts several times a day. The middle name of our son Nemo is Yasa, after the cyclone that hit Fiji whilst I was pregnant with him.
For those of you that are knew here, we bought an old ex Vendée Globe open 60 and converted her into our family cruiser.
We launched in September with the hope of being out of Fiji before cyclone season started… but we weren’t ready in time and instead have found ourselves still here in the peak of the season. On top of this a few weeks ago our gearbox broke and left us engineless with the next low pressure system developing close by…
Due to our nearly 5 metre draft, the safest cyclone hole for us is about 100nm to the east in the capital suva - but due to our gearbox failure, our only option is to use our 25hp outboard engine to help manoeuvre the boat off the anchor and through the reef passes on route.
At that moment we were about 48 hours away from the closest point of approach of the first system, and about 5 days before the second one would be close. So we’d still have time to move if we wanted to - but without an engine, we weren’t sure if that would be the safest solution.
At the moment the systems weren’t headed for a direct hit for Fiji, but we remembered what happened to our friends on Pantagruel a few years ago during cyclone Yasa - whose track had also been to miss Fiji a few days before it hit, but in the end Fiji was a directly in it’s path
But we were running out of time as the first system had now become a named cyclone Judy, which was getting closer, and there wouldn’t be a gap between that one and the one following close behind for us to escape to Suva.
But it’s not over for us - as the next day - the next cyclone - Kevin - now Category 5 - changed track and headed closer to us…
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Thanks so much to Olivia at / wildernessofwaves for the clip of us coming onto the mooring and on the mooring in the bad weather :)
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Caio! We are Timo and Jo, an Italian and English couple with countless ocean miles under our belts. We're refitting an ex Vendée Globe Open 60 race boat originally designed & built & raced by famous Hungarian sailor Nándor Fa. He competed in her in the 1992 Vendée Globe (round the world single handed race known as “the Everest of the seas”), finishing 5th, becoming the first non-frenchman to finish.
We are currently in Fiji giving this old gladiator a new lease on life, transforming her from an ex race boat to a performance family cruiser, which we'll need to make both dog and baby proof! We’re planning to set sail again in Oct 2022, so with limited time&money we have plenty of challenges ahead to turn our dreams into reality&get back on the water!
Subscribe to our channel&track our progress as we release videos about our journey as well as "how to" videos about anything boat related.
Never stop to dream, never stop to sail!
You can find out more about the boat, us and our refit plans on our website www.sailingnv.com or follow us on
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2 окт 2024
