South Pacific Liveaboard & Passage-making Opportunity

Great opportunity for experienced sailors to experience the live-aboard and cruising life-style from Tahiti en-route to New Zealand, via Tonga.

When: May to December 2021

What: we are taking svPERIGEE from French Polynesia to New Zealand. We expect the passage to take ~85 days, visiting Bora Bora, Suwarrow, Niue, and Tonga enroute to New Zealand. The passage expectation is ~25 days underway, including overnight passages, with some day-sailing around and in-between islands. We’re comfortable sailing coastal and offshore ‘two-up’, but are opening the crew-list to provide opportunities for like-minded folk to join us as we make the iconic passage exploring the Tongan Island group.

The Boat: PERIGEE, a 2003 AMEL Super Maramu, is a 16m ketch designed and built to the European Cat A standard, certified to carry 8 people on all oceans, unrestricted. Fitted out in classic but unique style, ‘doing it tough’ is not in the AMEL design brief. PERIGEE is equipped to meet SOLAS requirements for the passage, such as a 6-person liferaft (new 2016), PFDs & harnesses, HF & satellite comms, flares, EPIRB, and so on. Many recent upgrades to equipment and systems.

Schedule: depart Tahiti mid-May through to mid-July, to be in the Bay of Islands NZ in late-October through mid-December. Sailing distance: >3,000nm, underway average 125nm per day.

Joining: You will be responsible for your own travel arrangements in getting to and from the boat (e.g. airfares, ground travel, hotel stays), including any general (personal effects), travel & evacuation insurance; health & medical aspects such as vaccinations/inoculations, health tests/checks, medical insurance & prescription / seasickness medicines; immigration requirements such as VISAs &/or other travel approvals.

Cost: Plan on an initial budget of USD50-pp.pd, which you may expect to cover food and other consumables , and your contribution to operating costs such as fuel.

This trip is advised by other media and forums in addition to this Meetup Group. Your RSVP will not guarantee you a spot on this trip, but will be taken as an “Expression of Interest”, with subsequent dialogue to establish mutual suitability.