Notes from the Old Noank Jail                            by Lacy and Ed Johnson

                            Part 3 – ALVEI  takes  to  sea

We left you as 38-meter Sailing Vessel (SV) Alvei, whose name means “one who goes everywhere” in Norse, departed Suva, Fiji for her first cruise under Captain Geoffrey Jones of Noank. A crew of 12 took her for a week long, non-stop sail west through the southern Pacific Ocean to Vanuatu,  Alvei’s nation of registry under her previous owner, the late Captain Evan Logan. On this maiden voyage, crew was comprised of four Fijians, four Australians, three Americans, and one Dutch deckhand who painted murals below decks.

At Port Vila, they continued repairing the ship. As Jones reported, “We made her sea worthy in Fiji, but there was still a lot to do. So we got to work in Vanuatu. I also had to update the registration and complete regulatory processes and paperwork as the new captain.”

Because cyclone season was approaching in the tropics, Jones opted to take Alvei southeast to New Zealand for early summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Of course, the crew changed again before departure: one Fijian and one Australian deckhand were replaced by two Canadians, and an American boatswain swapped out with a new one, Shelby Mauchline, a Yale graduate originally from Michigan, who will be returning as mate in February 2023.

Alvei set out on Dec. 4, 2019 and arrived in Russell, New Zealand on Christmas Day. They stepped ashore on Boxing Day due to customs procedures. Of note, if you would like to get a firsthand look at the 21-day passage by sail, Canadian deckhand Sahara Hare’s viral vlog on YouTube (https://youtu.be/-hJQjocpAbw) would be a good choice. A few days later Jones anchored her in the Bay of Islands almost exactly where Mystic’s own whaling ship,  Charles W. Morgan, did in 1850.

As mentioned previously, Jones and Thompson had thought they would be gone to Fiji for two weeks back in May. Accordingly, Jones left Alvei in the care of Thompson and flew home to handle affairs the second week of 2020. In the following weeks covid spread across the globe. Jones attended an important local memorial service March 7 and then booked the next flight to Auckland.

“Logan was empty. I’d never seen anything like it. There were just a few of us on the plane. I’ll never forget that I left Thursday the 12th and landed the morning of the 14th- somehow skipped Friday the 13th. New Zealand closed the borders at 11:59pm on the 14th. I was pretty lucky,” he said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern  declared Level 4 COVID-19 Health Alert on March 25th. “I was concerned about running out of supplies. No one knew how long anything would take or what would happen,” Jones recalled. So how did this international vessel with an international crew manage?

The newly hired ship’s cook had been a fine dining chef locally. When restrictions closed every restaurant, wholesale vendors had no buyers and lots of supplies. The chef reached out and Alvei was able to load up with ten months of restaurant quality provisions while helping sellers out of a bind.

By the end of April, restrictions had eased to Level 3 and cyclone season had passed in the tropics. Hoping to find warmer, calmer waters to weather the Kiwi winter, Jones reached out to a few islands. He called Vanuatu: “Port is closed. If you attempt to enter the harbor, gun boats will escort you out.” When he called American Samoa, it was gun boats, again. Australia was having an outbreak and closed.

Thus, Alvei spent the next few months almost entirely at anchor off the northeast coast of North Island, New Zealand. “It is much milder than New England- lows in the 30s and 40s. It was cold enough that we installed two wood stoves,” he said of the winters. However, they had something we do not around here- “They have these weather systems that are like our Nor’easters that come through at least weekly. Most of the harbors are exposed to the weather from one direction or another, so we had to move around an area that’s about the size of the coast from Maine to New York all winter to stay protected.”

Due to marine laws in New Zealand, ships are not allowed to stay at one port for more than two weeks. So Alvei spent the next year sailing around the island. She became a floating safe harbor for covid refugees- as countries opened and closed borders and ports, crew changed. Most were international backpackers with no maritime experience. Crew members from China, Turkey, South Africa, Finland, Argentina, and more were added to the painted flags in the galley which represent every country of origin of crew members since Jones took charge. There are 21 flags total now. So how did he keep this potential Babel boat at bay?

“Everyone had to speak English to join. Every vessel has one language it uses officially- obviously communication is pretty important. We all spoke English when we were around each other. I was insistent because it’s good for morale- everyone feels more heard and respected. Sometimes people needed help with translation because they didn’t have the vocabulary, so another speaker could assist- English isn’t easy. That was crucial for our success,” Jones explained.

As ports opened around the equator and covid vaccines made their way to New Zealand around August 2021, Jones and crew started preparing for the voyage to Mystic. The advertisements for deckhands in New Zealand newspapers mentioned “40 day sail” but that was like Gilligan’s “three hour tour.”

Our next installment will cover the incredible trans-pacific sail north- a course no sail powered ship has taken in over a century.