DOGTOOTH DAYS ABOARD A CAT
M Dogtooth tuna are tough prisoners 56 Professional Skipper July/August 2011 r
BY MIKE RENDLE
Few people have ventured on to the Chesterfield Reef, one of the most remote parts of the South Pacific. The reefs are a French territory located in the southern Coral Sea, 550km nor'west of Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia.
ost of the visitors are passing yachties who stop over between Australia and the Pacific Islands. Few visit the archipelago specifically to catch fish for an extended period of time.
I was on board Te Ngakau a Kupe, a stunning sailing powercat
specifically designed for long-range gamefishing. (See the 2008 edition of New Zealand Workboat Review, published by Professional Skipper.) With me were my good friends John and Christine Erkkila, their
children Alex and James, the designer of the boat, Ron Given and the skipper, Andrew "Spoon" Witherspoon. Fortunately everyone fished, dived and snorkelled, and was able to keep watch at night on the ocean passages.
This was our second visit to the reef and we were ready for more jigging, more light tackle trolling, coral trout, dogtooth tuna and maybe a marlin this time. We had no idea what to expect. There is very little information available apart from the Wikipedia site, and a Google search only brings up a few yacht log entries. We hoped the birds would be there in numbers and we'd see turtles. But we desperately wanted to find billfish. Te Ngakau a Kupe is one of two gamefishing catamarans
operated by New Zealand Gamesail, the company owned by John and Christine. They are designed to chase fish for extended periods of three weeks or so, and their sails allow them to cover huge distances at low cost, supplemented by the 2500 litres on
