Current Position: 10 35.560’S 142.14.585’E; Local Timezone: UTC+20 SOG: 0 kt COG: N/A; TWS: 5 kt; TWD: 002; Distance to Waypoint (Wyborn Reef): At anchor ; Total Miles Sailed: 8820 nm; Engine Hours: 193; Estimate Fuel: 49+12+50;
Comments: The author Hellewell claims the passage into the waters that separate Thursday Island and Horn Island are more complicated to navigate than the crossing of the GBR. I have been studying the charts for days and I might agree. There is a complicated set of obstacles in those waters. I have uploaded 18 waypoints into a route from Wyborn to Horn Island, and that is not even enough detail. I will be hugging my iPhone running Navionics to identify the dangers. My plan is to weigh anchor at 5:00 and sail the 27 nm to the beginning of the passage in the waters that separate Horn and Wednesday Islands, then drop the sails and motor the remaining 7 nm so. The idea is to arrive at the passage about 10:30, high/slack tide, then arrive at the anchorage around noon, before the afternoon winds kick up the waves. I’d motor sail, but cannot run the risk of the wind picking up and not having enough room to round up and drop the sails. Because of the reputation of the water at Thursday, most yachts anchor at Horn. Taking a dinghy back and forth can be dicey, especially in the afternoon. The thought of my small dingy full of water and fuel jugs is thought-provoking. My plan is to take the ferry from Horn to Thursday while I am there, the move the boat to Thursday just before I leave to move supplies to the boat. I have noticed today that the ride has become a lot rougher at Wyborn as the day wore on. I will need to get everything I can here, because it may be quite some time before I see a store again, certainly not before Christmas Island. I’ll need to fill the fuel tanks, propane tanks, and stores. At 3:15, I noted the boat was pointed in exactly the opposite direction of the wind, suggesting the current was in the opposite direction. Low tide was at 2:38. So the tide has begun to come in. It looks like the current will be against me as I sail to the passage and then will presumably be with me. I woke up to my alarm at 4:30. I had only woken up twice during the night, slept deeply, and had trouble waking up. I brewed some tea. It is 4:50. There is a cargo ship 16 nm S of me doing 10 kt. I need to get out ahead of it as the first part of my route is in the shipping channel. Will have to have my tea later. I am ready to weigh anchor at 5, but the switch has stopped working on the windlass again. Kicking myself for not going to the chain locker yesterday to inspect it. Well, bad news. I shorted out the switch and there is nothing wrong with it. I swapped the cables to the solenoids and the “up” switch uses the “down” solenoid to lower the chain, so neither the up switch or solenoid are bad. I checked the voltage at the switch. It is 13.52, the same as the batteries under the V-berth. The batteries are fully charged. I put a clamp amp meter on the negative of the solenoid and shorted out the switches. They show the same current, 2.5 Ah, so there is current flowing when the up switch is activated. I put the clamp amp meter on the negative of the motor. Shorting the “down” switch produces 100+ amps. Shorting the “up” switch produces none. This is the problem. I switch the two positive leads on the motor. The chain goes up when the switch is shorted. I measure the voltage on the positive/high amp side of the control box when the switches are shorted out. The “down” produced voltage and the “up” did not. I have a bad “up” solenoid on the high-amp side. My short-term solution is to switch the motor’s wires to be able to raise the chain. I will drop the chain manually. This is one more problem that is going to make life more challenging. I need to either find a replacement box or find a marine solenoid that has capacity to handle the windless and splice it in. It looks like I am going to Darwin anyways. It is now 6:30. I am going to practice dropping the anchor here, rather than experiment at Horn. It is 7:00 and I am underway. The ship I was worried about is now ahead of me and I see no other worrisome traffic. I am motor sailing to try to make up some time … making 5.4 kt boat speed but 6.5 with the current behind me with the Yankee and 1400 rpm. First waypoint is about an hour away, near the lighthouse at Cape York. In about 2-3h I will be out of the shipping lanes. This is another reason I am motor sailing. I finally had the tea I made at 4:45, 2.5h later. Thank goodness for Yeti cups. Made the first waypoint (H2) at 7:51. 3 nm to H3. Making 7 kt SOG, but ai imagine I am going to get shadowed after I turn the point … another reason to motor sail. I have a 2.1 kt current off my port quarter pushing me sideways. Heading is 298, but COG is 318. Made H3 at 8:17 with boat doing 8.5 kt in 2.8 kt current. H4 is 5.1 nm away. I am now on a beam reach. I will be out of the shipping lanes after H4. There is a yacht (Greij) 4.8 nm ahead of me, apparently anchored. I noticed it was there all night. Looks like I will pass within 1 nm of it in about 30m. I see the lighthouse at Bay Point, which it the furthest point N on the York Peninsula. I left the shipping lanes at 8:50. The wind direction is changing as I round the point. I reached H4 at 9:00. Greij (a sailboat) will be relieved I changed course as I was headed straight for her … 10m away. H5 is 2.5 nm away. I wanted to be at the entrance of the passage about 10:30, just before slack/ high tide. It is 9:00 and I am about 12 nm away and doing about 7 kt. It looks like I have made up most of the time I lost. I can see Horn Island ahead in the distance. I reached H5 at 9:22. H6 is 9.5 nm away. I was in the shadows of the cape for a bit, but the wind is blowing strong again, albeit in a different. The depth has been pretty consistent at 70’ so far. High tide at Palou Point, just outside the passage, will be at 9:52. The high tide at Thursday Island is 10:52. I think I am going to be at the passage between Horn and Wednesday a little after 11:00. The current has decreased to 1.3 and the SOG to 6.4. It is 10:30, 2.5 nm to go to H6, the 1 kt current has swung around to the starboard beam, slowing the SOG to 5.5 kt. This decrease in current speed and change in direction is consistent with the slack tide that was predicted to be about 10:00 near Palou Point. The wind has largely disappeared, so the wind vane is not operating well. At 10:50 the jib was slatting, so rounded up and furled it. It became increasingly difficult to furl I went forward and found the halyard tight again. I loosened it and the sail furled easily. I reached H6 at 11:07. H7 is 2.5 nm away. After that the waypoints are closely spaced to avoid hazards. There is almost no wind and the current, which is still on the beam, has decreased to 0.8 kt. H7 was reached at 11:32 with 0.4 kt current to the starboard quarter. H8 was reached at 11:40 with a 0.3 kt current to my stern. H9 at 11:55. The wind reappeared. H10 at 12:06. H11 at 12:15. At this point I slowed down to 3 kt to maneuver through a slot in the reef. The remaining waypoints were not critical and I used Navionics to make my way to the anchorage. I was anchored in 31’ of water by 13:00. I have been keeping an eye on the conditions of the water between here and TI, and they are glassy smooth. However, there are on 5 kts of wind. Not sure what it would be like with 23. In any case, I will plan to take my dinghy there in the morning.
Comments: The author Hellewell claims the passage into the waters that separate Thursday Island and Horn Island are more complicated to navigate than the crossing of the GBR. I have been studying the charts for days and I might agree. There is a complicated set of obstacles in those waters. I have uploaded 18 waypoints into a route from Wyborn to Horn Island, and that is not even enough detail. I will be hugging my iPhone running Navionics to identify the dangers. My plan is to weigh anchor at 5:00 and sail the 27 nm to the beginning of the passage in the waters that separate Horn and Wednesday Islands, then drop the sails and motor the remaining 7 nm so. The idea is to arrive at the passage about 10:30, high/slack tide, then arrive at the anchorage around noon, before the afternoon winds kick up the waves. I’d motor sail, but cannot run the risk of the wind picking up and not having enough room to round up and drop the sails. Because of the reputation of the water at Thursday, most yachts anchor at Horn. Taking a dinghy back and forth can be dicey, especially in the afternoon. The thought of my small dingy full of water and fuel jugs is thought-provoking. My plan is to take the ferry from Horn to Thursday while I am there, the move the boat to Thursday just before I leave to move supplies to the boat. I have noticed today that the ride has become a lot rougher at Wyborn as the day wore on. I will need to get everything I can here, because it may be quite some time before I see a store again, certainly not before Christmas Island. I’ll need to fill the fuel tanks, propane tanks, and stores. At 3:15, I noted the boat was pointed in exactly the opposite direction of the wind, suggesting the current was in the opposite direction. Low tide was at 2:38. So the tide has begun to come in. It looks like the current will be against me as I sail to the passage and then will presumably be with me. I woke up to my alarm at 4:30. I had only woken up twice during the night, slept deeply, and had trouble waking up. I brewed some tea. It is 4:50. There is a cargo ship 16 nm S of me doing 10 kt. I need to get out ahead of it as the first part of my route is in the shipping channel. Will have to have my tea later. I am ready to weigh anchor at 5, but the switch has stopped working on the windlass again. Kicking myself for not going to the chain locker yesterday to inspect it. Well, bad news. I shorted out the switch and there is nothing wrong with it. I swapped the cables to the solenoids and the “up” switch uses the “down” solenoid to lower the chain, so neither the up switch or solenoid are bad. I checked the voltage at the switch. It is 13.52, the same as the batteries under the V-berth. The batteries are fully charged. I put a clamp amp meter on the negative of the solenoid and shorted out the switches. They show the same current, 2.5 Ah, so there is current flowing when the up switch is activated. I put the clamp amp meter on the negative of the motor. Shorting the “down” switch produces 100+ amps. Shorting the “up” switch produces none. This is the problem. I switch the two positive leads on the motor. The chain goes up when the switch is shorted. I measure the voltage on the positive/high amp side of the control box when the switches are shorted out. The “down” produced voltage and the “up” did not. I have a bad “up” solenoid on the high-amp side. My short-term solution is to switch the motor’s wires to be able to raise the chain. I will drop the chain manually. This is one more problem that is going to make life more challenging. I need to either find a replacement box or find a marine solenoid that has capacity to handle the windless and splice it in. It looks like I am going to Darwin anyways. It is now 6:30. I am going to practice dropping the anchor here, rather than experiment at Horn. It is 7:00 and I am underway. The ship I was worried about is now ahead of me and I see no other worrisome traffic. I am motor sailing to try to make up some time … making 5.4 kt boat speed but 6.5 with the current behind me with the Yankee and 1400 rpm. First waypoint is about an hour away, near the lighthouse at Cape York. In about 2-3h I will be out of the shipping lanes. This is another reason I am motor sailing. I finally had the tea I made at 4:45, 2.5h later. Thank goodness for Yeti cups. Made the first waypoint (H2) at 7:51. 3 nm to H3. Making 7 kt SOG, but ai imagine I am going to get shadowed after I turn the point … another reason to motor sail. I have a 2.1 kt current off my port quarter pushing me sideways. Heading is 298, but COG is 318. Made H3 at 8:17 with boat doing 8.5 kt in 2.8 kt current. H4 is 5.1 nm away. I am now on a beam reach. I will be out of the shipping lanes after H4. There is a yacht (Greij) 4.8 nm ahead of me, apparently anchored. I noticed it was there all night. Looks like I will pass within 1 nm of it in about 30m. I see the lighthouse at Bay Point, which it the furthest point N on the York Peninsula. I left the shipping lanes at 8:50. The wind direction is changing as I round the point. I reached H4 at 9:00. Greij (a sailboat) will be relieved I changed course as I was headed straight for her … 10m away. H5 is 2.5 nm away. I wanted to be at the entrance of the passage about 10:30, just before slack/ high tide. It is 9:00 and I am about 12 nm away and doing about 7 kt. It looks like I have made up most of the time I lost. I can see Horn Island ahead in the distance. I reached H5 at 9:22. H6 is 9.5 nm away. I was in the shadows of the cape for a bit, but the wind is blowing strong again, albeit in a different. The depth has been pretty consistent at 70’ so far. High tide at Palou Point, just outside the passage, will be at 9:52. The high tide at Thursday Island is 10:52. I think I am going to be at the passage between Horn and Wednesday a little after 11:00. The current has decreased to 1.3 and the SOG to 6.4. It is 10:30, 2.5 nm to go to H6, the 1 kt current has swung around to the starboard beam, slowing the SOG to 5.5 kt. This decrease in current speed and change in direction is consistent with the slack tide that was predicted to be about 10:00 near Palou Point. The wind has largely disappeared, so the wind vane is not operating well. At 10:50 the jib was slatting, so rounded up and furled it. It became increasingly difficult to furl I went forward and found the halyard tight again. I loosened it and the sail furled easily. I reached H6 at 11:07. H7 is 2.5 nm away. After that the waypoints are closely spaced to avoid hazards. There is almost no wind and the current, which is still on the beam, has decreased to 0.8 kt. H7 was reached at 11:32 with 0.4 kt current to the starboard quarter. H8 was reached at 11:40 with a 0.3 kt current to my stern. H9 at 11:55. The wind reappeared. H10 at 12:06. H11 at 12:15. At this point I slowed down to 3 kt to maneuver through a slot in the reef. The remaining waypoints were not critical and I used Navionics to make my way to the anchorage. I was anchored in 31’ of water by 13:00. I have been keeping an eye on the conditions of the water between here and TI, and they are glassy smooth. However, there are on 5 kts of wind. Not sure what it would be like with 23. In any case, I will plan to take my dinghy there in the morning.