Tag Archives: fiji

Musket Cove Regatta Week 2025

Leave a reply

It’s that time of year again – the Musket Cove Regatta Week!  We had so much fun in 2022 racing on “Wow” and again in 2023″ racing on “Wings.”  This year we will be racing on a beautiful SVD60 (Simons Voogd) designed 60′ catamaran called “Marcato”.

Matt and I both admired this boat in the earlier regattas.  It has stunning lines, clean look, and wicked fast reputation.  The owners Anthony (Ant) and Janine Robinson were kind enough to let Matt and I crew with on this year’s Musket Cove Regatta!

Be sure to read about our 2023 and 2022 adventures of the Musket Cove Regatta.  Simply type in “Musket Cove” in the search bar or click here.

Ant and Janine invited several of their friends to help manage this incredibly fast rocket.

But, mostly Ant was at the helm, Phil and Janine worked the main sheet and headsails, Chris, Matt and I (mostly Chris and Matt) were on deck handling the sail changes.

During the longest race, around the Malolo Island we had at least 8 sail changes!

The first day of the regatta is kicked off with hobie cat races.  Matt and Chris (from SeaGlub) join together to be team SugarGlub.

The easily win their first heat despite the light winds.

Unfortunately, they lost their second heat during single eliminations.  But they had great fun!

Beachcomber’s Pirate Day

Day 2 brings Beachcomber Island’s Pirate day!  

Anything goes during this race!  That means that boats can use their engines, sails, and whatever means necessary to get to the anchorage first.

Marcato started off slow (captain’s choice) and crossed the start in 11th place.  Never good when you take photos with boats in front of you. By the end of the race we were catching up to the 1st place boat.  Unfortunately, this boat displayed really poor sportsmanship and refused to let us pass and pushed off off the course. 

True that anything goes, but this was beyond rude. 

Beachcomber Island Resort really knows how to host an authentic pirate party.  Yachties are captured, and tied together as they step foot on shore.  The pirates then walk them across hot coals at knife point and into the vaccine tent for a retched shot of rum.

We did win 2nd place and I won sexiest pirate 🙂

Around the Island Race

There are 3 sailboat races during Musket Cove Regatta week.

  1. Beachcombers Pirate Day
  2. Around the Island
  3. Sandbank Race

The around the island is by far the most prestigious race.  Racers have to navigate around reefs, corals, and more as they sail around Malolo hitting almost every point of sail.

We had over 9 sail changes during this race (which is a LOT).

We had a great start and managed to stay in the top 3 for the majority of the race. During the last 1/4 of the race we edged in front of both the 1st and 2nd boats.  As we neared the finish line, with a mere 100 meters to go the wind died to zero (see photo).  The good news it died for everyone.  After a painstaking 45 minutes, it picked up and we crossed the finish line first doing a whopping 3kts!

Super Hero / Villain Party

Besides having an amazing boat, Ant and Janine are great party planners.  They went all out on the costume party.  We were Gru and his minions complete with a “moon” strategically placed in the rafters of the bar.

We won first place!

The Sandbank Race

This is an interesting race as the racers follow the committee boat with a marker. 

The committee boat does not drop the marker until it deems it prudent. The racers never know where the marker will be dropped.

Marcato came in 3rd during this race.

All in all the Marcato crew came away with lots of prizes and wins.

  • 2nd place Beachcomber Island Pirate Race
  • 1st place Around the Island race
  • 3rd place Sandbank race
  • 1st place Superhero costume contest
  • 1st place sexiest pirate

We sailed in the Musket Cove Regatta 2025 in mid-September.

Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind actual live events.

Don’t miss out on our bushwhack hike along the ridgeline of Malolo Island.

World Surf League Finals (WSL): Cloud Break

Leave a reply

The World Surf League (known as WSL) hosted the 2025 surfing finals at Cloud Break, Fiji.  Lucky for us we happened to be 6nm away from this prestigious and monumental event!

The athletes stayed at the exclusive and private island resort of Tavarua  which is conveniently located near the famous surf spot, Cloud Break. Rumor has it that clients of Tavarua Resort not only have to be very wealthy but they have to commit to surfing in order to stay here. 

We are not allowed to land on the island at all.  We tried to “walk the beach” and were promptly shooed away by security.

World Surf League  (WSL) Finals

There many famous surf spots in the world including Teahupoʻo  in French Polynesia, Pipeline in Hawaii, and Cloud Break in Fiji.  

Do you remember when I had the opportunity to watch the WSL competition in Teahupo’o, French Polynesia?

Fijians built is a permanent judge’s stand into the reef many years ago.  They add the banners to the stand each year and remove immediately after the event.

In the swarm of spectators there is a boat with the announcers.  The announcers let the surfers and their coaches know who has wave priority, what the scores are, and what is needed to move on to the next round.

The popular floating bar, Cloud 9 donates their transport boat for the competitors.  The locals wrapped the competitor boat in advertisement and outfitted it to comfortably house all 10 competitors and their teams.

The Spectators

Between 25-35 boats anchored near the reef to support and witness this great event.  In addition, there were dozens of dinghies, long boats, tourist boats, surf boats that came out to the “line” to witness the WSL competition and be part of the mayhem.

We took Sweetie, our dinghy out which was 6 nautical miles away from our anchorage.  That is a long way to take your dinghy!  We met up with our friends Chris and Sarah on Seaglub and Chris and Michelle on Beleza.

WSL Competitors

The WSL competitors have spent 7 months surfing all over the world in 11 competitions.  During the finals the top 5 men and the top 5 women compete to be world champion.

Michelle on Beleza shared some of her photos since I don’t have my phone (it died many months ago).

The waves started out slow but by mid-morning they filled in and provided a beautiful landscape for the athletes.

The wave curls around so we were only able to see about half of the surfable wave.  But still very impressive.

At times we had a 3meter swell pushing all of the boats and dinghies up and over. 

Cover photo by Ed Sloane, World Surf League

Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual live events.  We enjoyed the WSL on 2 September 2025.

In our last blog post, we finally fix the last part of our standing rigging by replacing the furler and foils on our forestay. 

The Final Rigging Repair Part III

Leave a reply

Our rigging work is almost complete. The last part of our rigging work is the replacement of our furler and foils. 

Our furler is 24+ years old and has been limping along for awhile.  We’ve known we would need to replace it but we were hoping to do so in New Zealand (in 2 months).

We assumed we would have more resources available to us in NZ as opposed to Fiji.  But, we’ve been pleasantly surprised.

What does a Furler do?

A furler is a mechanical system on a sailboat that rolls a sail around a stay or into a hollow mast or boom. Furlers allow us to safely and easily deploy, release, and stow the genoa from the cockpit.  This eliminates the need to go onto the deck.

Sugar Shack has a forestay rod that has a multi purpose.  Part of the furler package is 18m of foils which will go on the solid rod we use as a forestay.  The leach of the genoa sail (front end) is threaded through the foils to attach it to the forestay.  The foils turn which allows the sail to be deployed or furled. 

The shaft on the furler has worn down over the years causing the bearing to not sit properly. 

So, the furler still had a little “give” or “wobble” even though we replaced the bearing.  

Ordering the Furler

Matt wanted the C430 x 18m Profurl Furler: included link plates 55mm + SS locks C430 and a threaded pin DIA 25mm (63/64).  

We placed the order with Wichard Pacific in Australia on Friday morning. Both parcels arrived and cleared customs on Tuesday afternoon. Pretty darn impressive!

Removing the Old Forestay, Foils, and Furler

Sammy from Westside Rigging first loosened both of side stays.  This action will release tension on the mast and forestay.

Next, Sammy removed the furler (at the bottom by the bow). 

His assistant held the bottom end of the forestay where the furler is located.

Matt then sent Sammy up to the top of the mast to remove the upper portion of the forestay.

The forestay is very long – about 18 meters long. 

We had 3 people in 2 different dinghies and 2 people on board.  

Sammy slowly lowered the top of the forestay as I guided it past the port bow and down  to the dinghy. 

We slowly get the entire forestay off the boat and stretched between the two dinghies to get it to shore.

It took all of us several hours to remove the old foils (which wrap around the forestay rod). 

Evidently, our NZ rigger used 5200 (heavy-duty glue) to lock in the set pins.  The 5200 prevented us from removing the set pins and forced us to cut 3 of the foils in order to get them off.

We donated 6 of our 9 foils and their connectors to another cruiser.

Installing the New Furler and Foils

We received (9) 2 meters foils (18 meters long), connection brackets and our new furler.

Our forestay (headstay) is 12.7mm stainless rod measuring at 17.5 meters long. It is HUGE. 

We laid the forestay out on the grass and tied off the ends to allow us to pull it straight as we worked.

First the foils go on.  This can be tricky as they have to align just right to get on the rod. And on top of that they fit very snugly over the pin that at the end of the rod.

Sammy installed the connectors which connect the foils to each other.

Loctite is placed on the set pins which are used to secure the foils to the connectors.

The top portion of the furler is inserted and then it is time to work on the furler drum. 

The drum is partially installed and will be completed back on the boat. 

Took a bit of fiddling and maneuvering, but  we installed the headstay and new furler!  Yeah!

Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual live events. 

We replaced our furler toward the end of September 2025 in Vuda Marina, Fiji.

In our last blog, we share the experience of replacing our standing rigging side stays in Fiji.