09/10/2026
Auckland to Perth
AFTER MIDNIGHT — THE NIGHT WATCHMAN
Aboard Ata Rangi | Tasman Sea | Saturday, 10 October 2026
Welcome aboard Ata Rangi, as we make our way through the darkness approximately 20 nautical miles north of the Three Kings Islands, off the very northern tip of New Zealand.
This is the After Midnight blog, and I'm your host, Captain Midnight.
You join us on our first night in the Tasman Sea, having finally departed Opua at 11 a.m. Friday morning.
And when I say finally, I bloody well mean it!
It's been a long wait.
We prepared the boat in Auckland and brought her north to Opua some five weeks ago, expecting to find a suitable weather window to make the crossing to Australia.
Unfortunately, the weather gods had other ideas.
In fact, the weather patterns haven't just been uncooperative. They've been downright bizarre.
The Pacific has been experiencing some extraordinary oceanic and atmospheric conditions, with significant changes in sea temperatures and pressure patterns contributing to an incredibly unsettled period of weather across our part of the world.
For someone who spends as much time at sea as I do, it's been fascinating to watch, although considerably less fascinating when you're trying to get a boat across the Tasman!
The culprit is this Massive El Niño, a huge patch of hot water crossing the Pacific Ocean from Central America to the outer Pacific Islands. This is the largest El Niño event every recorded, blowing the previous 1986 record out of the water (pun intended). In fact its so much larger than the 2016 event, it can't be compared on the same scale.
The weather systems we've been dealing with have been unusually persistent, intense and, perhaps most frustratingly, unpredictable.
It's certainly been unlike anything I've experienced during my many years of making these passages.
Those conditions eventually forced our retreat back to Queensland, where I spent every single day studying weather forecasts, comparing models and searching for the slightest indication of a break.
And last week, I thought I finally saw one.
There were some encouraging signs that the relentless southwesterly onslaught, which had been hammering the region for the previous five weeks, was beginning to develop a c***k in its armour.
We were initially preparing to depart last Friday, but the forecasts were changing so dramatically from one day to the next that the latest predictions were almost unrecognisable compared with those issued just 24 hours earlier.
Nevertheless, beneath all that uncertainty, I could see something changing.
There was an opportunity beginning to develop.
So we waited, watched, adjusted our plans, and eventually I decided it was time to seize our chance and make the leap across the Tasman.
And here we are!
Of course, joining me aboard Ata Rangi are my trusty shipmates, Nugget and Worsty.
We've very quickly settled back into our familiar roles, and the boat is running beautifully.
I must admit, having an unexpected extended period at home was something of a novelty, and a very enjoyable one at that.
All three of us took the opportunity to spend some precious time with our families, friends and loved ones. When you spend as much of your life offshore as we do, those moments at home become particularly valuable.
I also managed to spend a fair bit of time sharpening my skills on the radio-controlled yacht racing circuit.
Having recently introduced Worsty to the wonderful world of DF95 racing, I've now got myself another training partner and competitor to battle with around the buoys.
As it turns out, the little bu**er is annoyingly good at it, too! We even got Nugget to grab a remote and do a days racing with us.
But enough about our little yachts. We're back aboard a proper-sized boat now, and there's a rather large ocean ahead of us.
THE WEATHER WINDOW — NO BEAUTY QUEEN
We're currently making good progress, although I must say the weather window I've chosen is certainly no beauty pageant queen.
In fact, it's probably more like the thing you drag home from the pub at 2 a.m. on closing time.
Neither a beast nor a beauty, but hopefully good enough to get the job done!
It's a complicated window, and we're going to have to carefully navigate our way around some of the bumpier bits.
With that in mind, I've already taken us considerably further north than I would normally choose for a passage between New Zealand and Sydney.
We've passed to the northeast of the Three Kings Islands and are now pushing north towards the Wanganella Banks.
My intention is to get ourselves above a developing pressure system that will bring some very strong northerly winds into the waters between us and the northern tip of New Zealand.
By getting north of that system before it intensifies, we should be able to avoid the worst of its conditions.
From there, we'll turn and make a run almost directly west across the Tasman.
Interestingly, our intended track takes us almost directly past Lord Howe Island, which at this stage sits approximately one nautical mile off our planned rhumb line.
From Opua to the Lord Howe Island region is a little over 800 nautical miles, followed by another 400-odd miles down to Sydney.
All up, we're looking at a solid 1,200-nautical-mile passage, and we've prepared and fuelled Ata Rangi accordingly.
There is, however, another developing weather system to consider.
A strong northerly breeze is forecast to develop along the Australian east coast on Wednesday, potentially affecting the final leg between Lord Howe Island and Sydney.
At this stage, I'm hoping we can position ourselves sufficiently far north to approach that system at a reasonable angle, allowing us to run down towards Sydney with the wind on our starboard rear quarter.
That's the plan, anyway!
The difficulty is that the forecasts have been becoming increasingly unreliable beyond approximately 72 hours.
Consequently, I really don't know exactly what conditions we'll encounter during those final 400 miles.
We'll simply have to keep reviewing the forecasts, comparing the models and adjusting our strategy as the situation develops.
It's certainly not the straightforward Tasman crossing I would have preferred, but offshore deliveries rarely provide the luxury of everything going exactly to plan.
FUEL MANAGEMENT AND MAKING MILES
On the mechanical and operational side of things, everything is progressing nicely.
We've already transferred approximately 400 litres of diesel from our deck-mounted IBC tanks into the vessel's main fuel tanks.
Another 500 litres will be transferred in the morning, and we expect to have emptied our additional deck fuel by Sunday morning at the latest.
The boat is handling beautifully.
We're currently travelling a little faster than our normal economical cruising speed, sitting on approximately 10 knots while burning around 50 litres per hour combined.
There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, I want to burn sufficient fuel from the main tanks to allow us to transfer the remaining diesel from the IBCs.
That will enable us to get the additional weight off the deck before we begin encountering more beam-on conditions over the next 24 hours.
Removing that weight from higher up in the vessel will improve our stability and reduce the effects of rolling as the sea conditions become less favourable.
Secondly, the additional speed allows us to cover some valuable ground and get ahead of that developing pressure system before it begins to intensify.
At the moment, outright fuel economy isn't our primary concern.
Positioning the vessel correctly in relation to the approaching weather is considerably more important.
However, that will change over the next 24 hours.
Once we've achieved our desired position, we'll begin reducing our speed and concentrating on stretching our fuel reserves to cover the remaining distance to Australia.
It's all a balancing act between speed, fuel consumption, vessel handling and, most importantly, the weather.
And right now, we're playing that balancing act one forecast at a time.
THE FIRST NIGHT AT SEA
So here we are.
After five weeks of waiting, watching and wondering when we'd finally get our opportunity, Ata Rangi is once again making her way across open ocean.
The engines are humming away, the boat is performing beautifully, and the familiar rhythm of life at sea has returned.
Nugget and Worsty have settled back into their routines, and I'm once again enjoying the solitude of the midnight watch.
There's something rather special about being out here in the darkness, hundreds of miles of ocean stretching ahead, with nothing but the instruments, the weather and your own judgement to guide the way.
We've still got a long way to go, and I suspect the Tasman has a few surprises waiting for us before we reach Sydney.
But for now, we're making miles, the crew is happy, and the adventure is well and truly underway.
Anyway, that's all I've got for you tonight.
As always, thank you for joining us aboard Ata Rangi and following another OceanX adventure.
Until the next update, stay safe, look after one another, and spare a thought for the three blokes making their way across the Tasman.
Signing off,
The Night Watchman.
Captain Midnight
OceanX Offshore Deliveries
Track our progress live 24/7 by clicking the link below.
https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/OceanX_Crew_7/?mapMode=useAtlas&windSymbol=WindStreamlines&weatherSource=ECMWF&fbclid=IwY2xjawHZ9GlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXt_b8aDHM9VchE3HFZ1xrc8oqXjFsw-Rz05qO4vWXGmI6N0VcioIKm_sg_aem_HeiNCikDNFtMsPGejyJgnA
