XANADU

The good ship

Xanadu is a Stuart Matangi 36, built in kauri, berthed at Chaffers Marina in Wellington. She was Dad's boat, passed out of the family for a while, and was bought back in 2025.

Her second surviving logbook opens in February 2013 — and before anyone records a course or an engine hour, somebody decides the book needs a proper introduction. It is declared the log of the good ship Xanadu, and an unbiased one: entries to be made only by people of integrity, whose words cannot be corrupted by such things as bribery.

Quite a standard for a cruising yacht. Particularly one carrying friends and family.

Design

Stuart Matangi 36

Hull

Kauri

Berth

Chaffers Marina

Cruising ground

Marlborough Sounds

Heart of oak

Folded into the pages of the logbook, on a printed sheet dated 22 November 2010:

Come cheer up my lads, it's to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year.
To honour we call you, as free men, not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves.

What the log remembers

French Pass. Pelorus. Queen Charlotte. Coves and anchorages recorded with positions, some with hand-drawn maps, some with notes on exactly how to approach a mooring. Departure times, wind, sea state, fuel, engine hours — and mixed in amongst them, ordinary life aboard. Someone goes ashore. Someone swims. Dinner happens. The weather changes.

And every so often something aboard decides it has performed its duties faithfully for long enough and would now prefer to stop working. Batteries. Pumps. Windows. Steering. Anodes. A toilet inlet. A boom and gooseneck. That category becomes something of a recurring theme.

Later pages carry children's drawings over the technical notes — which, rather than spoiling the record, somehow completes it. By then it isn't a vessel record. It's a family object.

The crossing

Wellington to the Sounds is not a passage you take when it suits you. It's a passage you take when the strait allows it. Karori Rip wants slack water. Tory entrance wants slack, or the stream running your way. Get those wrong and the weather barely matters, because the tide has already decided.

So the crossings get planned around the gates, then held or abandoned on the forecast. Most candidate weeks never happen. That's the job.

The chart

Crew: three answers only the crew would know will mark the spot.