AROUND THE LAND OF THE LONG WHITE CLOUD

Mike Delamore faced heavy weather, equipment failure and a knockdown during his 34-day circumnavigation of New Zealand, writes Alex Stone

- Alex Stone

This morning has been hell. I am too exhausted to fill in all the details but suffice to say we are now running under bare poles in 50-60 knot winds, making 5-10 knots in giant seas. We get smashed fairly regularly by breaking waves but the boat’s fine and apart from a wave that just forced the main hatch open and drenched everything, we are getting on nicely. This was forecast to be 35 knots and it sure as hell isn’t. I hope it eases off soon,’ noted Mike Delamore in his log.

He is one of the few people to have solo circumnavigated New Zealand. This is perhaps not surprising, given the rugged nature of the south-west coast of the South Island off Fiordland, and the south-east coast of the North Island off the Wairarapa, where the trimaran Rose-Noëlle capsized in 1989. Her crew spent 119 days adrift on the boat’s wreckage before being washed up on the outer rocks of Great Barrier Island, near Auckland.

New Zealand’s inhospitable coastline and attendant seas were not shy to throw everything at Delamore and his steel Van der Stadt 34 sloop Cavatina too.

But he’s seen it all before. Delamore is regular crew aboard Henk Haazen’s remarkable ice-capable steel expedition yacht Tiama. Together they have sailed scientists to some pretty inhospitable places including New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic Islands, to the Balleny Islands, the Ross Sea and to Antarctica.

Delamore has always been around boats, beginning with his idyllic childhood growing up on Great Mercury Island off the Coromandel Peninsula, which his parents owned and farmed.

A VARIED SAILING LIFE

After marrying his wife, Vibhusha, the couple bought the 36-foot, triple-kauri-skinned yacht,