{"id":1964,"date":"2025-07-08T03:54:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2025-07-08T03:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:56:40","slug":"check-in-july-8-2025-400-utc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/08\/check-in-july-8-2025-400-utc\/","title":{"rendered":"Check-in July 8, 2025; 4:00 UTC"},"content":{"rendered":"
Current Position: 15 29.013\u2019S 162 24.891\u2019E; Local Timezone: UTC+21; SOG: 4.0 kt COG: 330; TWS: 12 kt; TWD: 115; Distance to Waypoint (R1, Raine Passage, 270): 1093; Total Miles Sailed: 7257 nm; Engine Hours: 167 Estimate Fuel: 60+13+50
\nComments: Sunset was about 17:40. The skies looked dark and menacing downwind, but much less so upwind. Although I was presenting a lot of sail (the Yankee and one reef in the main in 21 kt gusts) I was confident the boat was not going to be overpowered. The wind is expected to lessen overnight. There was one freighter on a semi-parallel course as me, but it was expected to pass some distance. There were a few smaller boats in the area and the fishing trawlers were still a day away. I am routinely checking the bilge and there is no water accumulating, either because there is less water getting in or the automatic valve pumps are removing it. I downloaded a GRIB at 17:40. Not much has changed. I will head N to the Solomons until Thursday morning (2.5d), then head W. It is 18:10 and the ship is now 25 nm off my starboard and expected to pass 15 nm in front of me. Since dusk, the wind has veered to 125, sending me on a more northerly course. Since that is where the wind is going to be in a couple of days, I am not tempted to jibe. I note there is a cold front about 30 nm S of me (17S), which must be the weather I spotted at sunset. And, there are thunderstorms warning at 11S (including the Solomons), but that is supposed to dissipate by the time I reach it. At 19:30 the course was practically due N as the wind continued to blow from 125 (sometimes 130), 10-15 degrees more southerly than predicted. Jibing would put me on a course much closer to R1, but I am concerned about the dead air tomorrow. According to the forecast, staying the course will bring me air Wednesday but if I jibe I\u2019d follow the dead air Wednesday and have a poorer angle to R1 later in the week. I am sticking with the plan in the hopes the forecast is correct, albeit a little late. On a positive note, the 23 kt wind is driving me nearly twice the speed expected (predicted from 14 kt wind). The extra speed is bringing me closer to the freighter, but I still expect it to pass about 5 nm off my bow in about 90m. At 20:30, after an hour of 130-135 wind, I was being driven easterly, backwards, so I jibed and made a course directly at R1 at close to 6 kt. If I can make good time easterly the next 24h, I should be able to catch the last of the wind northerly after a jibe, also allowing me the squeeze between two large groups of trawlers. Since I am now in a parallel course with the freighter and it is moving twice my speed, I can safely sleep. However, over the next 2h I was woken up a dozen times to trim the sails, trying to find the right compromise between course and speed. The problem was the direction of the waves was causing the boat to corkscrew and the jib to bump (which woke me up) when it was shadowed by the main. Finally, about 22:20 I seemed to find a balance where the boat was headed pretty much due W and the sails were sheeted in to reduce the play. I was still averaging 6 kt in 18 kt wind. Before trying to sleep, I checked the AIS and was surprised to find a cargo ship coming up behind me, 26 nm away and doing 13 kt. It was on the PW long-range plots, but I had not paid attention to it because before I jibed we were not on a similar course. Like the earlier one, it was headed for the Torres Strait. However, because I was being forced W, it looked like it would pass my stern. It was at least 2.5h away. I set an alarm for 1h and tried to sleep. At midnight I confirmed it would pass 10 nm to my stern in 1h. By 2:00, the wind had shifted to 95, almost due E, making it impossible to sail W. I jibed and headed N again \u2026 about 325 at 6 kt. About 4:30 I made the last adjustment of the night. I went back to the berth, did not set an alarm, and woke up at 7:00. It was overcast and unusually dark for the time of morning. The wind was down to 13 kt. The boat had averaged 4.8 kt on a course of 320 while I slept. This is about what I could expect the next 24h. The overcast came from a long front that covered the E (starboard) side of the boat, the dark clouds blocking out the sun. The leading edge of the front was backlit by the sun, emphasizing the density of the dark clouds beneath it. A whisker pole would help stabilize the foresail, but I was reluctant to set one until I learned how menacing the weather was. So I settled for trimming the main to give the jib a bit more air, then made my morning tea. I hadn\u2019t noticed immediately, but the big waves of the last few days were gone and the ride was relatively smooth \u2026 probably why I slept so late. While enjoying my peppermint tea, the sun rose over the front, and I downloaded a new GRIB. The weather course looked very good, denting me NW between two of the biggest groups of trawlers. The route goes up and around Zona Island (Solomon group, just S of Guadalcanal) before catching big air the rest of the way E. The nastiness burned off by 8:30 and I set the whisker pole the sails are much more stable now and I picked up perhaps half a kt. It is 9:00 and a seabird has been circling close to the boat for an hour. It keeps swooping past the cockpit and staring at me. Perhaps he\u2019s waiting for a handout, like he might get from one of the trawlers. I have been having the same breakfast each morning, La Ferme de Tagabe (a French yogurt-like dairy product), the muesli I got in Tonga, and a banana. However, I had to jettison the last of the bananas last night when they fell into some dirty water. They were about done anyway. It is 12:40 and it has been slow going all morning, a little over 4 kt towards Zona Island, now about 240 nm away. The wind is expected to pick up tomorrow evening, so I expect to be there by the end of the day Thursday. The course has me passing Zona, then turning SW to sail between Zona and the tiny island of Bellona north of it. There is a large atoll S of Zona called Rennell. The southern edge of Rennell is about 170 nm from my location, so I expect to reach it late tomorrow night or early Thursday morning. I will need to make a decision whether to jibe before Rennell or after Zona. I don\u2019t have a feeling how tall Zona is, but I could expect some shadowing as I round it. For the first time during the passage, I have had almost a full day of sunshine. The batteries should be charged by 1:30 or so, then I will try to make some water. I opened the fridge and it smelled like something was rotting. I discovered a bottle of mustard broke, covering almost everything and dripping down to the lower level. An hour had passed before I had it cleaned up. Needless to say, the fridge was warm after and had to be cooled down \u2026 so no making water today. I normally never drink while sailing, but a bottle of beer dropped while I was cleaning the fridge and the cap popped off. I figure it was the sea gods rewarding me for my patience. The distance sailed towards R1 in the last 24h was 1172-1093=79 nm. The total distance sailed was 7375-7257=118 nm (118\/24=4.9 kt avg.).<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current Position: 15 29.013\u2019S 162 24.891\u2019E; Local Timezone: UTC+21; SOG: 4.0 kt COG: 330; TWS: 12 kt; TWD: 115; Distance to Waypoint (R1, Raine Passage, 270): 1093; Total Miles Sailed: 7257 nm; Engine Hours: 167 Estimate Fuel: 60+13+50 Comments: Sunset was about 17:40. The skies looked dark and menacing downwind, but much less so upwind. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Check-in July 8, 2025; 4:00 UTC”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-captainslog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}