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early bulletin: “Keep a good lookout for anything with a closed isobar in the tropic region
to your west. If you see one, don't leave until it passes or disappears”?
Two days later, our fears were realized as the depression off Fiji materialized and deve-
loped into an unmistakably onerous system with the potential to become the first named
tropical storm of the season. It was expected to track southeast toward Tonga and the very
ocean sector that the fleet was sailing directly through. Later, it became clear that the de-
pression would inch toward a high pressure system located over New Zealand, creating an
intensified squash zone. In some ways, the general scenario paralleled that of the infam-
ous 1994 Queen's Birthday Storm, which claimed seven vessels and three lives (weather
services underestimating a depression forming off Fiji; a high pressure system over New
Zealand creating a squash zone; a cruising rally giving a subconscious feeling of a dead-
line).
Soon, it was clear to everyone that the storm spelled trouble. However, theories on how to
handle it varied widely. Part of the fleet resolved to stay put in Tonga. Other vessels,
already well underway, calculated that they could hasten south, out of the predicted storm
track. Still others agonized over backtracking to Tonga. But sailors hate backtracking - es-
pecially when the finish line to a long cruising season beckons so seductively. Several out-
ward bound yachts wavered, turning back for Tonga, then pointed their bows back toward
New Zealand after all. A few even made a third course change, about-facing one more
time for shelter in Tonga - a wise decision, as events were to prove.
The trouble with racing to beat a storm's predicted path is that atmospheric forces hold
very little regard for human weather forecasts. The low's expected intensity and track
changed from forecast to forecast, playing with the hopes and fears of those underway.
What eventually materialized was more serious than the initial warnings had suggested: a
more intense low moving farther south than expected and closing in on those underway.
The idea of speeding south to keep ahead of the storm was complicated by light air condi-
tions during the first days of the passage. That meant immediately relying on engine
power - all well and good for large sailboats with huge fuel reserves, but smaller vessels
with limited capacity had a lot of optimistic calculating to do. Many were forced to burn
most of their fossil fuels early on, leaving no Plan B for the latter part of the trip - a point
when sailboats often motor to reach New Zealand ahead of the next low pressure system
coming across the Tasman Sea. No matter how you packaged it, the scenario was littered
with ugly possibilities.
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