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The sail from 8S to 15S during the southern winter in this part of the world is a fairly safe bet. The SE Trades should prevail but are affected by the South Pacific Convergence Zone, SPCZ. Forecasts from Fiji, NZ and Melbourne give detailed coverage of the position of this 100nm wide belt. Low pressure systems to the south also produce north extending troughs which may influence the Trades, either weakening or reinforcing them.

The SPCZ had to be crossed regardless so we expected a few days of unsettled, squally weather. A change in latitude of 7 degrees was also expected to bring a welcome temperature drop.

Navigation was "interesting" as the area we were to traverse is shown on the chart littered with banks and shoals noted as - "rept'd 1930", "breaks", "pos'n approx" - that sort of thing!

On day 1 James and I motored out of Tuvalu's Funafuti Atoll then set our sails for a beam reach. It wasn't long however that the wind increased to 25kts and swung to the south - we were beating, definitely not what we ordered. Illywhacker wasn't troubled though and with a double-reefed main and half-furled jib we made 2 good day's run of 145 nm each. The skipper and crew weren't pleased though as the motion was yukky and the waves over the deck managed at one stage to create a leak below via the main hatch. We quickly taped around the hatch but the leak was discovered to be from a badly dogged handle. Water anywhere near my computers is treated as an emergency!

The wind swung back to the SE on day 3 and we broke out our fast-reaching rig of jib, reefed main and mizzen. This is fine until the wind shifts just a few degrees aft, the main then blankets the jib causing that annoying collapse-then-fill routine. We then drop the main and run a preventer to a full mizzen which allow us to travel very easily - we yaw less and the autopilot soon tells us if we've too much weather helm requiringa few turns of the jib furler.

There were a few days and nights of rain squalls but we sailed the full distance with the exception of the last 50nm motor into Luganville. Vanuatu. The passage of 887nm took us 5 days 15hrs, an average of 6.6kts. (This turned out to be the best average for any leg).