South Pacific Passage-making & Liveaboard Opportunity

Great opportunity for experienced sailors to experience a passage from New Zealand to French Polynesia, and thence the live-aboard and cruising life-style around French Polynesia en-route to the South Pacific Islands (including Niue, Cook Isl, Tonga & Fiji), before returning to New Zealand.

When: starting May 2023, through November 2023, earliest.

What: we are taking PERIGEE from New Zealand to French Polynesia, and return. We expect the passage from NZ to FP take 14-21 days, arriving for entry formalities either in Tahiti, or the more remote Gambier Islands (as to be determined closer to our departure date).

We’re experienced and comfortable making blue-water passages such as this just ‘two-up’, but are opening the crew-list to provide opportunities for like-minded folk to join us as we make this potentially mid-latitude passage Eastbound with the wind, before arcing northeast up to French Polynesia.

The Boat: PERIGEE is a 2003 AMEL Super Maramu, 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, serviced again prior to departure), PFDs & harnesses, redundant satellite comms, flares (including eFlares), multiple EPIRBs, and so on. After a 12-month refit whilst in NZ, now with many recent upgrades to equipment and systems.

Schedule: depart Opua, Bay of Islands, NZ, anytime from early-May, for a direct transit to French Polynesia. Sailing distance: >2,000nm, planning average of 125nm per day whilst underway.

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

Costs: Plan on an initial budget of USD50-pp.pd whilst on-board, which you may expect will cover food and other consumables, including 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.

This is a fully participatory activity and, based on prior positive experiences, we expect offshore crew to join at least 1 week prior to the earliest possible departure. This enables joining crew to get over any jet-lag, and facilitates relaxed and thorough boat- and safety-briefings, to do some local sailing, as well to become familiar with the boat and other crew-members, assess for good-fit, and (finally) to join in with a variety of pre-departure activities (such as provisioning, stowing, cleaning, weather briefings, passage planning, and so on).