New Zealand - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 325

Picking a Weather Window for a
Tonga-to-New Zealand Passage
Exactly a year after leaving Beaufort, North Carolina for the Caribbean, we faced a simil-
arly tricky passage on the other side of the world. Now in Tonga with an idyllic season of
Pacific cruising behind us, we were watching for a weather window to make the 1,100 mile
trip to New Zealand. The symmetry was striking. A year earlier, our challenge was to find a
gap between successive lows coming off North America in November, preferably with co-
operative northerlies to ease our way across the Gulf Stream. And no late season tropical
storms, please! In Tonga, we warily eyed lows spinning eastward off Australia - southern
hemisphere lows spinning clockwise, that is. Again, timing was everything. Too early in
the season meant that potential gales south of 30°S would be at their peak; too late, and we
could be chased by an early cyclone above that imaginary line.
Naturally, we weren't the only sailors eager to get our timing right. A seasoned fleet of in-
ternational cruisers had gathered in Tonga, all fixated on the figurative beacon of New Zea-
land shining ahead. After months of relatively carefree tropical sailing, signs of obsessive-
compulsive behavior were cropping up in every tanned, weather-beaten face. On beaches,
in cafes, on the radio: we scrutinized weather reports and compared notes. For most of us,
it promised to be an eight to ten day passage, plus or minus a possible stopover in North
Minerva Reef, nearly 300 miles out of Tonga. Many crews had signed up for the All Points
Rally, an informal event that offered the benefit of pre- and post-passage information ses-
sions as well as social gatherings and general weather advice - all for a price irresistible to
any cruiser (namely, free). A number of crews were also plugged into professional weather
services based in New Zealand and beyond, faithfully waiting their sage advice. The ques-
tion in everyone's mind was, which window was the window?
So when the pros gave the green light for a Thursday through Saturday departure in the
first week of November - exactly coinciding with the general time frame of the rally -
many cruisers jump-started over the starting line. Some of us, however, waited to see how a
mischievous-looking depression forecast to spin off the South Pacific Convergence Zone
northwest of Fiji would develop. As the fleet disappeared over the horizon, I couldn't help
but feeling slightly… wimpy. Were my misgivings a simple case of pre-passage nerves? On
the other hand, as a family with a young child, we like to play it safe, especially with any
hint of trouble brewing on the horizon. And didn't John Martin, organizer of the All Points
Rally and veteran of thirty-seven Tonga-New Zealand passages, specifically note in an