Sailing Dictionary New Entry for Boat: Broken Or About To

Polaris 2 during its Pacific Island voyages in 2023 and 2024, from Australia. 

Cruising sailors everywhere know that BOAT spells Bring On Another Thousand. I heard a new one recently, namely Broken Or About To. Our recent cruising adventures on board SV Polaris 2 to New Caledonia (2023) and Vanuatu (2024) seemed to adopt the latter spelling as a theme.

Polaris 2 sailed to New Caledonia in May 2023 and during several fly-in/fly-out visits, we cruised around the South Lagoon, Isle of Pines, Baie de Prony before sailing back to Australia in Oct 2023. We also enriched the local tradies in Noumea with sail repairs, replacement main halyard, replacement Solar MPPT and Wind Generator MPPT, replacement fridge compressor and a battery isolator notwithstanding comprehensive hull/rig and motor servicing over some months before leaving Sydney. I thought we were supposed to be enjoying the local trade winds, not enriching the local trades.

Social Unrest

My plan was to also be well prepared for sailing to New Caledonia and Vanuatu in 2024.

Vanuatu 2024 – expect the unexpected: My Polaris 2 passage plan to Vanuatu in 2024 was derailed from the start. The planned stopover in Noumea and the Loyalty Islands en route to Vanuatu had to be cancelled when the rioting started in New Caledonia on 13 May 2024 (the very night of our crew pizza night in Sydney prior to departure).

Straight to Vanuatu then. With Martin, Dick and Garry onboard, we sailed out of Newcastle in early June. Our meteorologist Kenn Batt directed us north via Bundaberg to avoid the big hole in the wind east of Australia, and then with favourable SE trades across to Port Vila south of the Chesterfield Reefs and north of New Caledonia. This was a 650 nm detour to create a trip of approximately 1,700 nm over about two weeks. Highlights included Garry catching loads of fish and a phone call from AMSA at 8pm one night about 200 nm from New Caledonia to ask if we would respond as the nearest yacht to an EPIRB alert from an Australian yacht. It had sailed onto Fairway Reef (about 40 nm away). We of course responded and motored for eight hours towards them until directed by a circling French Aircraft and AMSA about 4am that the yacht had since floated off and was making for northern New Caledonia for repairs.

Vanuatu

Nothing broke on the two weeks it took us to get to Port Vila and I was feeling very pleased with my months of preparation. This feeling did not last long on the next outing from Port Vila a few weeks later with a new crew, including my wife Margaret, old friends David and Dianne and Dr Nick. For a start the weather was pretty crappy so not much solar power. While motor-sailing the 25 nm from Port Vila to Havannah Harbour, I noticed that the batteries seemed to be having trouble getting a full charge, notwithstanding hours of motoring. During this troubled interval, David proceeded to split his scalp open when leaping out of the water via the rear ladder and splitting his scalp on the hard chine of Polly the wooden dinghy minding its own business hanging off the rear davits. Dr Nick swung into action with Polaris’s Cat 1 comprehensive remote area first aid kit to clean the wound and patch it up – lucky to avoid stitching and any infection.

Gremlins

Starting the engine after a few days moored near Moso Island, I noticed that the amp meter was going into negative when I revved the engine. This is of course is the opposite of what a healthy alternator should do. It turns out the alternator was not healthy and in fact was kaput – back to Port Vila. Also, we seemed to be suddenly losing a lot of coolant. This leak turned out to be a ruptured plastic hosepipe off-take fitting on the engine block which ran heated coolant to the boats HWS tank – official Volvo engine HWS fitting was a white plastic fitting. (Should you have one of these on your engine – replace immediately with brass).

There we enlisted the services of local electrician and mechanic Dave Morgan who diagnosed a dead alternator. Then the fun really started, as we discussed how to arrange a replacement alternator to be delivered to Port Vila as quickly as possible. While on the phone to Mark at Diesel Express in Auckland we were interrupted by a loud explosion nearby – WTF was that? Well, it turned out to be our brand new inflatable SUP exploding in the hot sun on the front deck – just to add a little bit of colour and movement to proceedings.

Delays

“You won’t get that alternator for at least three weeks mate”, I was told. This was Monday. Mark confirmed he could source a Volvo alternator and ship it by Wednesday that week – not bad I thought. He then said that with Air Vanuatu going broke a few months ago, there was a huge backlog of freight in Fiji waiting to clear into Vanuatu. The only licensed air freight carriers were Fiji Air or Solomon Air via Honiara. The express option involved sending the alternator from Auckland to Brisbane to Honiara to Port Vila at a cost of almost another alternator. All the ex-pats in the Yachting World marina at Port Vila confidently said you won’t get that alternator for at least three weeks mate!

Well, a long day on the following Monday involved spending the whole day with George, the customs agent. Then on to Harvey the driver, driving all over Port Vila to the customs office and out to the airport twice (no flights from Brisbane today mate) – but it was coming via Honiara and no one had told me – back to the airport that afternoon, much paperwork and ad hoc fees and there was the alternator – a standing record!

Dave installed the alternator two days later (Tuesday was of course Independence Day, a public holiday in Vanuatu) and I spent several days that week in sweltering heat reaming out the remnant plastic from the engine block. A big thank you to Shane Douglas, Douglas Marine back in Sydney for arranging replacement brass hosepipe fittings and to Alex Holtheur for his timely transport of same back to Port Vila that week.

Stinky holding tank

During this period, to add insult to injury and with no operational motor, Polaris 2 was expelled from the Yachting World marina seawall because fumes from her holding tank were stinking out the restaurant. How embarrassing. We were towed out to a mooring in disgrace by the very helpful expats in a brace of dinghies. After a week of very bad language – all was fixed and we were allowed back on the seawall.

Meantime, we returned to Sydney for a few weeks to recover. Polaris 2 was safely moored under the watchful eye of the Yachting World marina captain Ros. My wife and I returned late August 2024 with friends Martin and Philippa. I went out to the mooring to start the motor and bring the boat into the seawall. Of course, after completing docking at the seawall, the motor would not turn off – no response to the engine key. It had never done that before! Frantic phone calls to local mechanic Dave and Shane Douglas back in Pittwater. I turned off the fuel which eventually stopped the motor and then had to double bleed the fuel and the injectors to restart the motor. Shane then told me about the manual kill switch on the side of the motor and sent a photo via SMS. He said the problem was likely a fault in the engine solenoid but not to attempt any repair in Port Vila which may result in a disabled engine and extended wait for parts – I knew all about that! We continued our trip by manually shutting off the motor each time.

Opening the Chamber of Secrets

Martin and I decided we had to do something about the stinky holding tank. Open the chamber of secrets and clean it out, he said. We were unable to open the holding tank (probably just as well) but we managed to pump air down the holding tank line with the SUP hand pump and blew out some debris. Plus a few hefty doses of white vinegar to flush the tank which seemed to settle things down for the rest of the trip. Off we went, a lovely sail from Port Vila via Epi and Malekula, including a lovely anchorage at Awai. That changed when the gremlins hit the anchor winch while attempting to anchor in a very windy Malua Bay. The anchor winch decided to stop working and refused to wind up. After retrieving by hand, Martin set the second lighter sand anchor on short chain and rope rode. The strong winds caused the rope rode to run out at a blistering pace and across Martin’s leg resulting in almost third-degree burns, prompting another session with the medical kit. At the same time as the anchor winch drama was unfolding, and for the first time ever, the cockpit engine throttle decided to start slipping. After dismantling, we discovered a slipping grub screw which was subsequently made good (it had never done that before!).

Bow thruster bummer!

We worked our way around the faulty anchor winch at our next stop by collecting moorings at Ratua Island resort and then at Aore Island, off Luganville, Espiritu Santo where I had arranged to leave Polaris 2 for a few weeks. Unfortunately, while manoeuvring up to collect the mooring rope at Aore Island in strong tide over wind conditions, the mooring buoy ended up under the keel and our mooring line became caught in the bow thruster and stripped the plastic blades off – sacre bleu!

While back in Sydney for family and work, I arranged some replacement propellers from the local Sidepower agent. Fortunately, the moorings at Aore Island are managed by local dive operator Paul White. He and his divers arranged to install the new props on my return a few weeks later.

After six visits to Vanuatu Immigration, I managed to land the crew and arrange to clear out – exhausted. The sailing proved to be the easy bit. So, after all that, we had a lovely sail in classic SE trade winds 18 to 25 knots from Luganville on Espirtu Santo Island to Bundaberg, covering approximately 1,050 nm in six days at an average speed of 6.75 knots.

Photos by Andrew Robertson.

Published in Afloat July 2025 No. 423