The continuation of the story in Deborah's words:

Finally we are ready to leave Coffs Harbour. We left our Volvo and the dinghy with James and Sarah in Bellingen. Clearing customs involved a lot of paper work as they made us export the boat. Finally the weather was right so we decided to leave on the promise of a very mild south westerly.
We motored till we were approx 15 miles out we then set sail. The breeze was slight and of course in the wrong direction. Then there is the South Easterly Current. Which moved us much further south than we wanted to be. We had days of this and not moving too far. We found our antenna tuner for the short wave radio wasn’t working even though it was new out of the box and we could not transmit. We could receive weather reports but were unable to transmit. Just before we left Coffs Harbour the dc power supply of the computer died and so the computer was not working either. No weather fax and no navigation software. So back to the paper charts.
The first few night watches were spent watching the freighters. We had a few close calls where suddenly they seem to be upon you but we were always able to call them on the radio and confirm they could see us. I had my usual 3 days of sea sickness, where the guys were great. They made sure I was as comfortable as possible all the time and accepted I could be of no assistance for a few days.
The sun shone on us every day and we were visited by lots of dolphins playing and had so many whale sightings, including a pod of sperm whales within 20 metres of the boat. We had a plague of flies suddenly converge from nowhere. Little sticky beasts we had to have regular killing sessions. Once we were past 200 miles from Australia sightings of marine life seemed few and far between. Like we were out there completely alone the sea being so deep nothing seemed to come to the surface.There were always birds keeping us company the albatross were so graceful, gliding just above the water surface and some very small sea birds that dipped the tip of their wings into the water turning and twisting on the wind as they looked for food.
On day six we still had 775 miles to go to the 3 Kings finally we had some south westerly wind and we put up all the sails and cruised at 6 knots in the right direction. Gian went to put up our big genoa and found that when we had our rigging replaced the rigger had changed our forestay from 8mm to 10mm and now the toggles on the genoa weren’t big enough to allow the sail to got up or down, so we could not use our beautiful big genoa. Gian was very pissed off. In the afternoon the wind and sea started to pick up. There was a nasty front approaching and the rain started to fall. With wind and sea behind us we picked up speed then decided we needed to drop the main.
Soon the wind was blowing 35 knots, Gian had to go forward to bring down the jib, I was very scared for Gian as the boat was really getting thrown about while Kai tried to hold her facing into the wind. My job was to keep an eye on Gian he got the sail down really quickly and was now laying along the boom of the jib to tie the sail down. He managed and I was very proud of my sailor man. Kai did a great job at the helm surfing Magic Carpet down the now 6 metre swell and we were flying along at 10 knots with bare poles. After a couple of hours the wind did not let up and we were all exhausted and trying to see the waves behind us in the dark was very difficult we decided to stop and lie a hull. The boys put the rudder hard to starboard came below and closed all the hatches and huddled on the floor at the lowest point while the seas were breaking over the boat.
I was terrified, this was my first gale at sea and we weren’t sure how the boat would handle it. Gian and Kai reassured me and after a while I got used to the movement. Eventually we decided it was safe enough to go to sleep in our bunks. Magic Carpet rocked and rolled but no water came in and she stayed upright as she was battered by the sea on the starboard side. It was like a 24 hour roller coaster ride. This was the first big test for our little ship.
In the morning the wind and sea still hadn’t let go so we decided to stay put for another day and rest down below waiting for the rage to subside around us. Cooking was very interesting during this time. Apart from having to throw up every time I sat in the dinette to start preparing a meal, I had to master the art of keeping chopped veges etc. on the chopping board as we rocked and pitched in all directions and balancing prepared food in bowls on my lap and strap myself to the cupboards to be able to actually use the stove. Thank God for the pressure cooker, throw everything in one pot and away she goes. Before we head out on any more long passages we will have to remodel our galley.
After another 24hours the wind dropped and was now NE and the sea had settled down. We found we had drifted closer to Lord Howe Island. We started beating to windward. Gian still couldn’t make contact with anyone on the radio .We hoped as we got closer to Lord Howe we may be able to get them on the VHF or even cell phone coverage may allow a txt message to get through to someone in Australia. About 100 nm from Lord Howe and we are cruising nicely along and 3 plastic bullets that hold the main sail in the mast snapped. Gian had tried to have spares of everything but we had completely overlooked spares of these. Both Gian and Kai were angry and disappointed. The wind was predominantly from the East and without a main and unable to use the genoa we had no hope of beating into the wind with our 20 tonnes of steel boat all the way to NZ. We all realized if we were unable to get repairs done in Lord Howe our trip to NZ was over. Crew morale hit an all time low.
Two days later and progress is soooo slow we decide to abandon Lord Howe and turn back and go with the wind to Coffs Harbour. As soon as we made that decision the wind increased to 40 knots we tried running with it but the swell was getting to large so we once again pulled down the sails and lie a hull for the rest of the day and night. The boat is once again wallowing in the big seas and we are getting thrown about. Just going to the toilet is a huge mission. We had enough food and water to last. We had to turn off the fridge today to conserve gas. We are getting really concerned that we are unable to get a message out to let people know we are ok. Particularly our parents and children.
The wind dropped to around 25 knots so we pulled up the cutter jib and we were moving again and crews morale lifted. The auto pilot, which we named Al (being short for Aladdin) took over a lot of the sailing now giving us all a break. Gian pulled out an old sail he had as spare from his old boat Fantasia and set it up on the main halyard which gave us more canvas and more speed. The wind was slight but steadyfor a day or two and then dropped completely so with under 100nms to go to Coffs we started motoring towards Coffs Harbour. The sun was shining and the dolphins once again came to play around the boat as we got closer to land.
Finally after 2 weeks of having fishing line out Gian hooked a marlin it was so exciting we saw him jump out of the water then the line broke as we stopped the engine. Back through the shipping lanes in daylight was so much easier. We were able to contact all our loved ones and arrived at Coffs marina just after midnight. Gian did an amazing job navigating his way into Coffs Harbour in the dark. The lead lights can be quite tricky when approaching from the north. Then he did some precision boat handling bringing her into the marina berth.
We were all happy to be back on land again. We had been at sea for 2 weeks, travelled 931 nm and had circumnavigated the Wonganella Sea Mount. Although we didn’t make it to our destination NZ we were happy to have completed a great shake down cruise and were now fully confident in our Magic Carpet Rides ability to handle a gale or two. After a couple of weeks of bucket baths on deck the we had really long hot showers which felt incredible. Next morning we were woken by customs as we had to clear back into Australia. There were lots of questions as they don’t very often have people return when not intending to.
The customs guys took swabs from all the bench surfaces and tested for illegal substances, explosives etc. well the test returned positive, methamphetamine!!!! What!!! They said it could be something in our cleaning products which they tested as well. It ended up that apparently varnish contains something that has similar chemical signature so that’s what it was. We all had a laugh imagining our boat as a Speed or P laboratory while getting thrown around at sea. We did hear she was a bit of a party boat in her previous life on Lake Macquarie!
Anyway, Kai had to return to Waiheke to his children ASAP so he flew home the next day. I decided to fly back to NZ and get back to work as we hadn’t earnt any money for a month and funds were getting low. Gian was determined to get the Magic Carpet Ride over to NZ so after getting all the toggles replaced on the sails he found crew to start all over again to sail her back. That’s the next chapter!!!