T&T: Grounding in NZ

[Woody and Kathy]

Mike:

I spent nearly twelve years on the South Island of New Zealand, and made
several trips into the Fiords whilst there. This area is very similar to
West coast of British Columbia in having many deep fiords with land masses
going nearly vertical on each side. The  charts in the incident report are
in meters to give you a indication of contour. Anchoring in most of the
fiords means getting back to the end since anywhere in between is too deep,
and at the same time too close to shore. Not being a frequent cruiser in the
fiords, we always either found a fisherman at anchor, and joined them, or
asked for local knowledge for a place to hole up. We did make it a routine
to get the local knowledge before our trips. The winds do channel right down
those big ditches so a good place to anchor was always planned on. We did
not have GPS so we had to be careful with our piloting so we found the fiord
we were going for.

I did notice in the report that calls had been made via VHF, this is
something new, so the government must have put in repeaters because in the
sixties, and seventies you could not make radio contact with anyone you
could not see until you were out in the Tasman Sea.

Woody
Marben 27
Port Orchard, WA