[p]wallace
[pos]32 09s 173 46e
[sp]6.5
[h]160m
[w] Clear skies but band of cloud to NE, 4 knots wind S, baro 1022, slight sea.
[s] Continued motoring/ motor sailing south for NZ! 180 miles to Bay of Islands. ETA Opua Thursday late afternoon.
With all this motoring we were seriously worried that weâd run out of diesel before the northerlies arrived. Then, yesterday afternoon, our AIS showed a ship, the m/v Victoire, a tanker on passage to Tahiti, approaching at 12.5 knots from our starboard with a CPA of 800 ft.. After calling her to confirm that we had seen her and would alter course to starboard to pass behind her, we explained our predicament with the fuel and the oncoming weather and asked if they might be able to let us have 25 litres. Knowing that it would be impossible to stop the 285 ft tanker, we suggested they drop a not-quite-full can into their wake, with a retrieval rope attached, and we'd chase it and pick it up with the boathook. Which is exactly what happened. The Victoire didn't slow down at all but did quite a scary s-turn towards us; we saw the can hit the water at their stern and picked it up in a textbook man-overboard manoeuver. Bless the captain and crew of the Victoire and thanks to whoever was looking kindly upon us to send a tanker to cross our bows!
All well aboard[END]