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Here we go again. Day 5 and Arrival

Another gorgeous day for sailing. Day break the wind started building, up go the sails and off to the races. A perfect 10-12kts from the west now. Everyone loves beam reach.. The light winds and direction change, means the seas were also very kind. Zoom Zoom on to New Zealand we go.

Drug the lines for a bit, until the boat speed was touching 8kts and above. Nothing small is going to catch the lure at those speeds and certainly didn’t feel like slowing down just to have to clean a fish, even with another Mahi being reported by boats behind us. 🙂

The final sunset, was beautiful. We still had a long night and a time change to deal with. We lost 2 hrs, so our midnight arrival was really going to be 2am on Kiwi time.

Preparing quarantine flag for arrival, just before sunset.

As we were just approaching the BOI (Bay of Islands) the wind pipped up, which is opposite of normal. Normally it gets softer at near the bay, so that last bit of sleep was put on hold while speed was up. With the auto pilot still being a bit finicky it seemed prudent to be near the helm just in case he decided he needed break after 6 long days of 24/7 service. It was a good call, as he tried to take a break a few times during the final miles ..

Yellow “Q” flag, says we haven’t been cleared into country, immigration/ health / bio security/ customs.

Now that we were close enough, starlink data was full on, no longer billable by Gigabyte. I did a quick google search on the Autopilot issue, and the suspicion was correct, time for a new RAM or at least a maintenance project. It seems the ram is supposed to be sent into get serviced every 1000 hours, and with our 40,000 miles we were well past service at 8000 hrs, who knew. So guess what gets service/updated in NZ, and of course a spare brother picked up. If you have 2 on board, you’ll never need the spare, or so goes the theory.

Arrived dock at 2am, with next to no wind, perfect for negotiating the dock in the dark, spinning around 180 and getting tied up. By 3am we were settled, and finally had a cold beer before the ever too short sleep before customs / immigration / biosecurity arrived. Super efficient and we were cleared to leave the Q dock an hour after the process started. Time for some more work to rinse the boat and get a proper sleep.

Save a favorite Mongolian Pork for the final push to rid the fridge of the ‘forbidden’ items.

Interesting that the only thing Biosecurity needed to remove from us in the end was a salami that we purchased in NZ before leaving that was made in Christ Church NZ. No worries, all the officers said Christine was super organized, and made the process super easy/efficient and we were done within 1 hour.

Back in the land where we read the labels, and what’s not to love about Snaka Changi marketing.

Back to the regular scheduled posts that will no doubt have a different spin on the short daily stories.

5 days, 17 hours

900 miles.

Water-maker fitting and autopilot hiccups, or bad at all for an ocean passage. Hope the next one is just as sweet.

Here we go again. Day 5

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Getting closer and closer with every mile traveled, amazing how that works. It’s like math or something that’s just hard to explain. Another night done, we are still looking good for 2 more sleeps till officialdom.

A great day out on the blue highway, not a bit of traffic in sight, nary a cloud in the sky, nor a breeze to be found.

At daybreak changed over to running the port engine, giving starboard a much needed rest.

Another of those must finish foods breakfast lunch and dinner kind of days. Calories don’t count on passage, or at least that what the ubiquitous “they” have said. Last bit bacon gone, good thing they have more in NZ.

Lack of wind, did a proper flake of the mainsail, getting it all nice and tidy, knowing full well if the wind comes up that effort would be wasted. Started water maker, making some water. Some minutes later the engine room alarm was going off. The water maker burst a high pressure compression fitting. Tried to once to simply re-use the ferule, but it had seen better days, and fails as spectacular as the first time. A glorious water feature that would be a feature in a Las Vegas hotel. So had to locate the spares on board. Of course on passage, things get stowed, so this involved moving the toys around a bunch to get to the spares. And voila, just like that another accomplishment for the day. Made water for most of the day. With engines being run, there was plenty of warm water for nice outside shower and no further water feature.

Christine made more of special little army as we were running low, those little gingerbread men have ensured a safe comfortable passage.

So productive we are on calm sea days.

Friends on the boats behind us, took advantage of the calm weather to go swimming in the bottomless pool. Meanwhile around our boat were 100s if not 1000s of blue bottles floating on the surface. Since the water was glass they were easy to spot. I just hoping they wouldn’t get sucked up in the citizens of the sea torpedo. Blue bottles are what I would call Portuguese Man-o-War jelly fish, just much smaller. They still pop like bubble wrap when to step on them, but their will sting like crazy. So better to stay away and keep on trucking.

Blue bottle, zoom from a moving boat ain’t the the greatest picture

Drug the lines in the water after another report of a Mahi Mahi being landed. Ours must not be tasty, we did manage to get a big eye tuna close to the boat, had taken the lure on the hand line, but spit the hook with one last effort within 2 meters from the boat. 🙁

As the wind changed so did the temperature, we must be getting close. Was t-shirt and shorts all day till the sun about 4pm, Thats when the chill started.

150 more miles, arriving in the dark or early morning. Last remaining beers added to fridge for reward at destination.

Bacon 🥓 , sausage and bacon for breakfast, kitchen sink pasta with every fresh vegetable we have onboard and very last jalapeño sausage too.

Every Cat has a Tramp

The tramp has multiple uses:

Safety and Performance: The trampoline allows water from the waves to pass through preventing excessive weight on the deck. In addition, it improves vessel stability by reducing weight at the bow.

Catamarans need to ensure there is as little weight as possible at the bows to prevent nose diving and pitch polling which could be catastrophic!

Comfort and Relaxation: The tramp also provides a lovely lounging area for sunbathing, gatherings, and happy hour.

There are many types of trampolines offering a variety of comfort. Most catamarans use a type of polyester mesh or high-strength vinyl. These offer the most comfort. They typically offer smaller holes making more comfortable to sit and lay on.

However, they don’t allow for a lot of water flow and there can be large gaps between the hull of the boat and the tramp which can be dangerous.

Then there are the dyneema or polyester mesh versions. These tend to be a lot stronger and last longer. The holes are bigger and the material smaller allowing for better water flow.

However, they tend to be not as comfortable and require a towel, blanket, or chair to sit on.

There are a lot more varieties of trampolines but they usually fall in one of these two categories. They all come in a variety of colors, strength, and thickness.

What does Sugar Shack have?

The original trampoline that lasted forever was dyneema. So, we bought a dyneema one to replace it (in 2010).

Dyneema is an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (HMPE) fiber, renowned as the world’s strongest fiber, offering up to 15 times the strength of steel on a weight for weight basis.

Where we lack in comfort, we make up in strength, longevity, and safety. And frankly, we usually just plop the bean bags on the tramp.

The 2007 version just would not die. It would get a little loose and dip in the middle but then Matt would just tighten it up on one of the sides. It just lasted and lasted for a very long time.

Each diamond is capable of holding 200 pounds! There are hundreds of triangles! It is so strong that we had 12 Polynesians sitting on it for a New Year’s eve celebration!

This is the old version which was temporarily installed after we removed the cross beam. We decided to finally to replace it when we found our first break.

Replacing the Old for the New

We briefly contemplated replacing the trampoline while we were on the hard. Then we realized it would be much safer to do it while we were on the water just in case we fell in.

It is a tedious project. There are stainless rods on each side and the back that are thread through the diamonds.

A piece of dyneema line is woven on the moveable rail hooks and interlaced around the stainless rod. This is then used to tighten the trampoline. As the tramp ages and droops it can be adjusted using the rod.

Matt has a lot of back and forth….you start weaving on one side without tightening it. Then you move to the opposite side and weave and go back and forth until it is even. Then you start the process on the front and back. All the while not being able to step on the trampoline.

It is tricky.

Matt has the new tramp over the old one. He is just starting the weaving in the top photo and almost done in the bottom photo.

This project requires a lot of patience, strength, and ingenuity. Nothing I possess which is why this is a blue project.

Final Touches

Matt can begin the finishing touches once everything is fairly even and tight. The excess edges are trimmed and the steel rods are capped on the ends.

Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual live events.

Matt replaced the tramp in May 2026.

The Adventures of Sugar Shack

– Sailing Aboard a Catana 471

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Here we go again. Day 5 and Arrival

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Here we go again. Day 5

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