Current Position: 18 59.068’S 174 39.550’E; Local Timezone: UTC+23; SOG: 6.8 kt COG: 254; TWS: 27 kt; TWD: 116; Distance to Waypoint (Vanuatu, Efata, Port Vila, 265): 370; Total Miles Sailed: 6338 nm;
Comments: It is 16:20, right after I checked in yesterday. The storm that has hit me is not a squall. It is probably the storm front that is filling on the dead air that becalmed me yesterday. There has been sustained 20-25 kt winds for the past hour and no sign it’s letting up soon. After 90m, I see daylight on the backside of the storm, but no letup on the wind, which is still blowing 25. I had forgotten that I got almost no sleep last night while dealing with the reef, so I want to get the boat bedded down for the night so I can sleep too. I noticed that the gusts were coming in waves, and immediately when the wind dropped to 20 at 17:00, I rushed on deck and put a second reef in just as the wind picked up to 28 again. The boat is no longer overpowered and is performing well at 6.5 kt towards the waypoint. The forecast is basically what I see now (20/25) for the next 4d. Thursday during the day will be 13/18. Friday will be about 15 day and night with no real gusts. I only have to average 4.8 kt between now and Friday morning to be in a position to arrive at Port Vila then, provided I don’t have to stray too far from the rum line. There is a double line of 20 fishing trawlers strung out perpendicular to my route over a distance of 50 nm the I may encounter tomorrow about this time, but I do not see any other obstacles until then, so I may get a good night’s sleep. It is incredible how quickly the big seas build. It was practically flat and a couple of hours later there are 12’ rollers. I am back to sleeping on the salon floor. Because the wind had changed directions so quickly, the swell and the wind-driven waves are not aligned. Twice in the past two hours the boat has accidentally jibed despite the fact the TWA=140 because the wind/water is corkscrewing the boat. I am going to have to set short-interval alarms to check throughout the night, although the change in heeling will probably wake me up … or maybe not … I am quite tired. It’s 18:30 and I am going to sleep. It is 19:25. I have been asleep twice and in the cockpit twice in the last 45m. The windvane is struggling with the 28 kt sustained winds, first heading up causing the boat to surf at 8 kt uncontrollably abs then accidentally jibing. I am having trouble finding a sweet spot for the control lines and vane. For the next several hours, I got up every 15m to keep the boat on course. By about 22:00, the initial violence of the storm had passed and the windvane was operating well. Thereafter, I woke every 30m to check and make corrections. By 1:30, I was where I was supposed to be at 8:00, 7.5h ahead of schedule. I had been averaging 7.2 kt. I was about 60 nm from the last known position of the 20 trawlers, 8h away at this speed. At 2:00, I downloaded a fresh GRIB and long-range AIS tracking data. For the first time, the weather route predicted I would arrive Friday (14:30). Also, the trawlers had moved and were for now not in my path. The weather forecast had not changed significantly … good wind for the remainder of the passage. When I got up at 5:45, it was gusting 30 kt, as predicted. I made an adjustment to the windvane to put the boat back on course to the waypoint, perhaps the 20th time overnight, and measured the average boat speed during a 5m interval … 8.1 kt, the fastest I’ve measured for the boat. Over the last 5h, since charting the new course, I am ahead of schedule another 2h. At 6:15 I downloaded new long-distance AIS data and there are no vessels that are an immediate threat. My arrival is now scheduled for 10:30 on Friday. The wind has been backing easterly all night, making it increasingly difficult to steer a heading towards the waypoint. As predicted, my course is becoming more southerly and I am loosing latitude. I am scheduled to jibe on Wednesday morning. At 7:00 I eased the sheets as I am now closer to a run than a broad reach. There is not much more I can do without jibing. I have sailed a remarkable 100 nm on in the last 15h, since my check-in, averaging 6.7 kt. I apparently forgot to set an alarm at 7:00. It was 8:50 when I woke up. Although the sun had been up for 1 1/2h, it was still dark because of the storm clouds. One reason I slept so long was the wind had backed 10 degrees, stabilizing the course. I looked at the track and could see the backing of the wind had been happening gradually over the past hour, since sunrise. AIS showed a cargo ship 28 nm off my bow. I had seen it earlier on PW long-range AIS. It would safely pass my bow in about an hour. Despite getting up on average every 20m or so and not getting much sleep the night before, I felt rested. I have become an expert in power naps and probably slept 10h since going to bed 14h ago. I averaged my course and speed over 5m and was making 6.5 kt towards the waypoint. I had lost latitude all night as I struggled to stay on course. Now I was gaining, made possible because of the wind shift at dawn. The shower sump was completely filled with water from the chain locker even though I emptied it last night, about 14h ago. I will need to set an alarm to empty it four times a day and when in Vanuatu I am sewing a cover for the chain chaise to restrict water from getting in. The GRIB was 14h old, so I downloaded a new one at 10:00. Not much had changed except my arrival time (now 6:00 UTC+23, 4:00 local) and the fact I can expect at least 20 kt wind the remainder of the passage. Fingers crossed, but it looks like I will arrive in time to complete the formalities before the weekend. I will contact Customs on Thursday when I have a better idea when. The cockpit was a bit wet, but I celebrated with some green tea and shortbread cookies in the cockpit. I could even see a little sunlight peeking through the dark clouds. I tried to polish some fuel from the main tank to the day tank and have some water in the main. Probably came from the vent on the starboard side of the hull and the violent seas. Will wait for the engine to cool down, drain the water from the bowl, and hope the backup fuel pump isn’t damaged. As a further complication, a two parallel strings of fishing boats that didn’t appear to be a problem are suddenly upon me, 11 nm off my port and heading straight for me. It looks like I will outrun the string to the east, but not the one to the west. The lead ship, Hangton 116, does not respond to VHF. Right now, it looks like I will pass its stern. Fortunately, the visibility is good, but the problem is I do not know what it has in tow. The last thing I want is to get tangled up in fishing nets in these seas. I finally spotted the lead vessel with the binoculars at 12:10. It was passing 1 nm off my bow. It had several vessels in tow, but they were close to the main ship. It passed at 0.25 nm. My guess is it was the support ship servicing a couple of trawlers. The next “free” trawler was 4 nm behind it. I assumed the support ship was not towing lines or nets, but the one behind might be, so I steered my boat between the lead and following ships. Having dealt with the traffic jam, I went below to deal with the fuel issue. I drained the water out of the secondary fuel pump and the Racor water separator, but it is not pumping fuel. It may need to be primed (shouldn’t) but it is rolling too much to handle diesel in the engine room. I will fill the day tank using one of the Jerry cans on deck, which is probably a better idea until I figure out how much water is in the main tank. While in the engine room I noticed the water tank pump had shaken loose from its shelf and was dangling by its hoses. I put it back temporarily, but need to secure it better. When I got out of the engine room I noticed a fault light on the LP gas detector. I know exactly what happened, the water pump swung into the back of the detector panel and loosened one of the wires. It is really cramped to get to, so will have to deal with it at anchor. It is 13:30 and the shower sump was already full. That’s only 5h. Also, there was mud … apparently from the chain, although I was mostly in the ball at Vava’u. Maybe it came from Tahiti. It was relatively calm, so I went to the foredeck to see if there was something I could do about the water ingress. It was a good thing, because the dinghy had worked loose, the canvas cover of the forward hatch was off, and the staysail, which I store under the dinghy, was on the starboard side of the walkway on the deck. I brought the staysail to the cockpit, recovered the hatch, secured the dinghy, and stuffed a rag in the chain chaise (although I’m not sure how much help that will be). It had clearly been much more violent on the bow during the storm than I had realized. At 14:00, I prepared a meal, rather, I prepared some rice to go with the second-to-last meal I got from the Tropicana Cafe, Butter Chicken. I studied the charts as I ate. In contrast to last night during the storm, the windvane has done a good job today keeping the boat headed for the waypoint. This is unexpected because the PW route had me headed way S to follow the change in wind direction. I’ve already saved perhaps 25 nm S (and back again). This is part of the reason my arrival time keeps being pushed forward. The only significant issue are accidental jibes because I am close to running. In fact, I have noticed that me sitting on the port side of the cockpit is sometimes enough to cause the boat to jibe … which is pretty remarkable in that I weight 180 lbs and the boat 18 tons. I noticed the control lines I replaced on the windvane in Hiva Oa are already starting to chafe. I need to buy a couple hundred feet of the double braid in Darwin and make extra sets. It is 15:00 and another big storm is brewing. It could be a repeat of last night. The distance travelled on in the last 24h has been 522-370=152 nm (maybe a new record). The total distance sailed was 6498-6338=160 nm (average 6.7 kt).
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Comments: It is 16:20, right after I checked in yesterday. The storm that has hit me is not a squall. It is probably the storm front that is filling on the dead air that becalmed me yesterday. There has been sustained 20-25 kt winds for the past hour and no sign it’s letting up soon. After 90m, I see daylight on the backside of the storm, but no letup on the wind, which is still blowing 25. I had forgotten that I got almost no sleep last night while dealing with the reef, so I want to get the boat bedded down for the night so I can sleep too. I noticed that the gusts were coming in waves, and immediately when the wind dropped to 20 at 17:00, I rushed on deck and put a second reef in just as the wind picked up to 28 again. The boat is no longer overpowered and is performing well at 6.5 kt towards the waypoint. The forecast is basically what I see now (20/25) for the next 4d. Thursday during the day will be 13/18. Friday will be about 15 day and night with no real gusts. I only have to average 4.8 kt between now and Friday morning to be in a position to arrive at Port Vila then, provided I don’t have to stray too far from the rum line. There is a double line of 20 fishing trawlers strung out perpendicular to my route over a distance of 50 nm the I may encounter tomorrow about this time, but I do not see any other obstacles until then, so I may get a good night’s sleep. It is incredible how quickly the big seas build. It was practically flat and a couple of hours later there are 12’ rollers. I am back to sleeping on the salon floor. Because the wind had changed directions so quickly, the swell and the wind-driven waves are not aligned. Twice in the past two hours the boat has accidentally jibed despite the fact the TWA=140 because the wind/water is corkscrewing the boat. I am going to have to set short-interval alarms to check throughout the night, although the change in heeling will probably wake me up … or maybe not … I am quite tired. It’s 18:30 and I am going to sleep. It is 19:25. I have been asleep twice and in the cockpit twice in the last 45m. The windvane is struggling with the 28 kt sustained winds, first heading up causing the boat to surf at 8 kt uncontrollably abs then accidentally jibing. I am having trouble finding a sweet spot for the control lines and vane. For the next several hours, I got up every 15m to keep the boat on course. By about 22:00, the initial violence of the storm had passed and the windvane was operating well. Thereafter, I woke every 30m to check and make corrections. By 1:30, I was where I was supposed to be at 8:00, 7.5h ahead of schedule. I had been averaging 7.2 kt. I was about 60 nm from the last known position of the 20 trawlers, 8h away at this speed. At 2:00, I downloaded a fresh GRIB and long-range AIS tracking data. For the first time, the weather route predicted I would arrive Friday (14:30). Also, the trawlers had moved and were for now not in my path. The weather forecast had not changed significantly … good wind for the remainder of the passage. When I got up at 5:45, it was gusting 30 kt, as predicted. I made an adjustment to the windvane to put the boat back on course to the waypoint, perhaps the 20th time overnight, and measured the average boat speed during a 5m interval … 8.1 kt, the fastest I’ve measured for the boat. Over the last 5h, since charting the new course, I am ahead of schedule another 2h. At 6:15 I downloaded new long-distance AIS data and there are no vessels that are an immediate threat. My arrival is now scheduled for 10:30 on Friday. The wind has been backing easterly all night, making it increasingly difficult to steer a heading towards the waypoint. As predicted, my course is becoming more southerly and I am loosing latitude. I am scheduled to jibe on Wednesday morning. At 7:00 I eased the sheets as I am now closer to a run than a broad reach. There is not much more I can do without jibing. I have sailed a remarkable 100 nm on in the last 15h, since my check-in, averaging 6.7 kt. I apparently forgot to set an alarm at 7:00. It was 8:50 when I woke up. Although the sun had been up for 1 1/2h, it was still dark because of the storm clouds. One reason I slept so long was the wind had backed 10 degrees, stabilizing the course. I looked at the track and could see the backing of the wind had been happening gradually over the past hour, since sunrise. AIS showed a cargo ship 28 nm off my bow. I had seen it earlier on PW long-range AIS. It would safely pass my bow in about an hour. Despite getting up on average every 20m or so and not getting much sleep the night before, I felt rested. I have become an expert in power naps and probably slept 10h since going to bed 14h ago. I averaged my course and speed over 5m and was making 6.5 kt towards the waypoint. I had lost latitude all night as I struggled to stay on course. Now I was gaining, made possible because of the wind shift at dawn. The shower sump was completely filled with water from the chain locker even though I emptied it last night, about 14h ago. I will need to set an alarm to empty it four times a day and when in Vanuatu I am sewing a cover for the chain chaise to restrict water from getting in. The GRIB was 14h old, so I downloaded a new one at 10:00. Not much had changed except my arrival time (now 6:00 UTC+23, 4:00 local) and the fact I can expect at least 20 kt wind the remainder of the passage. Fingers crossed, but it looks like I will arrive in time to complete the formalities before the weekend. I will contact Customs on Thursday when I have a better idea when. The cockpit was a bit wet, but I celebrated with some green tea and shortbread cookies in the cockpit. I could even see a little sunlight peeking through the dark clouds. I tried to polish some fuel from the main tank to the day tank and have some water in the main. Probably came from the vent on the starboard side of the hull and the violent seas. Will wait for the engine to cool down, drain the water from the bowl, and hope the backup fuel pump isn’t damaged. As a further complication, a two parallel strings of fishing boats that didn’t appear to be a problem are suddenly upon me, 11 nm off my port and heading straight for me. It looks like I will outrun the string to the east, but not the one to the west. The lead ship, Hangton 116, does not respond to VHF. Right now, it looks like I will pass its stern. Fortunately, the visibility is good, but the problem is I do not know what it has in tow. The last thing I want is to get tangled up in fishing nets in these seas. I finally spotted the lead vessel with the binoculars at 12:10. It was passing 1 nm off my bow. It had several vessels in tow, but they were close to the main ship. It passed at 0.25 nm. My guess is it was the support ship servicing a couple of trawlers. The next “free” trawler was 4 nm behind it. I assumed the support ship was not towing lines or nets, but the one behind might be, so I steered my boat between the lead and following ships. Having dealt with the traffic jam, I went below to deal with the fuel issue. I drained the water out of the secondary fuel pump and the Racor water separator, but it is not pumping fuel. It may need to be primed (shouldn’t) but it is rolling too much to handle diesel in the engine room. I will fill the day tank using one of the Jerry cans on deck, which is probably a better idea until I figure out how much water is in the main tank. While in the engine room I noticed the water tank pump had shaken loose from its shelf and was dangling by its hoses. I put it back temporarily, but need to secure it better. When I got out of the engine room I noticed a fault light on the LP gas detector. I know exactly what happened, the water pump swung into the back of the detector panel and loosened one of the wires. It is really cramped to get to, so will have to deal with it at anchor. It is 13:30 and the shower sump was already full. That’s only 5h. Also, there was mud … apparently from the chain, although I was mostly in the ball at Vava’u. Maybe it came from Tahiti. It was relatively calm, so I went to the foredeck to see if there was something I could do about the water ingress. It was a good thing, because the dinghy had worked loose, the canvas cover of the forward hatch was off, and the staysail, which I store under the dinghy, was on the starboard side of the walkway on the deck. I brought the staysail to the cockpit, recovered the hatch, secured the dinghy, and stuffed a rag in the chain chaise (although I’m not sure how much help that will be). It had clearly been much more violent on the bow during the storm than I had realized. At 14:00, I prepared a meal, rather, I prepared some rice to go with the second-to-last meal I got from the Tropicana Cafe, Butter Chicken. I studied the charts as I ate. In contrast to last night during the storm, the windvane has done a good job today keeping the boat headed for the waypoint. This is unexpected because the PW route had me headed way S to follow the change in wind direction. I’ve already saved perhaps 25 nm S (and back again). This is part of the reason my arrival time keeps being pushed forward. The only significant issue are accidental jibes because I am close to running. In fact, I have noticed that me sitting on the port side of the cockpit is sometimes enough to cause the boat to jibe … which is pretty remarkable in that I weight 180 lbs and the boat 18 tons. I noticed the control lines I replaced on the windvane in Hiva Oa are already starting to chafe. I need to buy a couple hundred feet of the double braid in Darwin and make extra sets. It is 15:00 and another big storm is brewing. It could be a repeat of last night. The distance travelled on in the last 24h has been 522-370=152 nm (maybe a new record). The total distance sailed was 6498-6338=160 nm (average 6.7 kt).
Sent from my iPhone