Bruce Maunsell has spent the past year getting used to how his yacht, Bob, behaves at sea, and is about to sail to Fiji and Japan in it. PHOTO SUPPLIED
WITH a couple of “time absorbing projects” out of the way, Te Kūiti business consultant Bruce Maunsell is going sailing for a couple of years.
Bruce was heavily involved in the planning of both the Timber Trail Lodge and the recently opened Gallagher Sport and Recreation Centre.
“It’s just an adventure that I’ve been wanting to do for a while and then second, I’ve finished my current project, so I thought I’ll take a year or two to go and do some sailing,” he said.
Bruce is going sailing with Bob, a Tashiba 40 he bought during lockdown. He’s sailed around the world previously but in other people’s boats.
He’s been getting to know Bob over the past year.
“I’ve done quite a lot of ocean sailing on other people’s boats, but this is the first time I’ve done it on my own boat,” he said.
He’s departing at the end of the month for Japan via Fiji and Guam.
“From New Zealand, my brother and sister are joining me for that leg,” he said.
They will leave the boat in Fiji and Bruce will sail solo to Guam.
“Then a friend’s joining me in Guam, which is still 2000 miles from Japan, and we will sail the last leg – it’s heavy traffic through there – so I don’t have to do that on my own.”
The shipping lanes from Peru and Mexico converge north of Guam, and marine traffic is heavy closer to Japan.
They will take a break about halfway between Guam and Japan at Ogarasawa – some tropical barely habited islands about 1000km SSW of Tokyo, before finishing the Japan voyage at Kurashiki on the Island of Honshu.
“I’m actually going as part of a rally,” Bruce said. “There are only three other boats, four boats in total that are going the whole way. So, we we’re sort of sharing weather, routing information and helping … sharing information around and the arrival and departure documents.
“And an agent in Japan that’s taking care of things for us once we get there. But we’re all on different boats so we’ll travel at different speeds.
“I won’t see them once I leave here until I get to Fiji, and then we’ll meet again at Guam.”
On the way to Guam, Bruce and Bob will be sailing over the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, the 11km deep Mariana Trench.
Bob is a sloop. It has one mast and two sails, a gib and staysail in front of the mast which makes it a cutter rigged sloop.
“It’s quite a traditional looking boat, it has a bowsprit. And it looks very, very traditional. Quite heavy displacement, it’s not a modern lightweight job.”
The fibreglass hulled double-ender was previously owned by a couple who had sailed the boat to Fiji and back every year for about 10 years.
“They were quite elderly and decided that they had had enough.”
Bruce is hoping to arrive in Japan by the middle of June.
“I don’t want to have any real strict timetable, but by that time of the year, you really need to be looking to get in and land and onto shore because of the start of the typhoon season.
“I’ll cruise up there for the rest of the summer, until about October. And then park the boat up for the winter and then go back again in April/May next year.
“At this stage plans are pretty loose, but I’m planning to sail across the top of the Pacific via the Aleutian Islands to Alaska and British Columbia.”
Eventually he plans to return to New Zealand via Hawaii and Polynesia, but he’s not making any firm plans.
“I’ll just see how I feel once I get there. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and it just seemed like too good an opportunity to pass.
“It was a boat that’s well suited to long distance and sailing and it’s particularly well fitted out.
“So, I just had to update a lot of the electronics here and safety gear.
There’s very strict regulation about leaving New Zealand and you’ve got to make sure you have enough.”
