{"id":1976,"date":"2025-07-14T05:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T05:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?p=1976"},"modified":"2025-07-14T05:31:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T05:31:47","slug":"check-in-july-14-2025-500-utc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/14\/check-in-july-14-2025-500-utc\/","title":{"rendered":"Check-in July 14, 2025; 5:00 UTC"},"content":{"rendered":"
Current Position: 11 26.314\u2019S 151 00.180\u2019E; Local Timezone: UTC+20 SOG: 6.0 kt COG: 274; TWS: 19 kt; TWD: 148; Distance to Waypoint (R1, Raine Passage, 261): 408; Total Miles Sailed: 8235 nm; Engine Hours: 175 Estimate Fuel: 55+14+50
\nComments: Note that beginning with this entry, the time zone will be UTC+20 (NE Australia) and will be made at UTC 5:00 (24h from the entry yesterday). It is 16:00 and ever since arriving at\/leaving Tagula Island (a.k.a, Sudest Island) about 9:00, I have been pounded by squalls. I had to run the engine twice to charge the batteries and cool the fridge, 30m in the morning and afternoon. I am going to have to worry about the traffic in the N\/S shipping lanes as soon as I clear the islands SE of P\/BG, about 19:00, so I\u2019m going to try to get some sleep now. The reef is 4 nm N of me, so I am setting 30m intervals. I couldn\u2019t sleep. There were 30 kt gusts that kept causing the boat to round up. Sunset was 17:40. I am averaging close to 7 kt due E. But, there is a new squall coming in every 30m that wreaks havoc with the windvane. The wind direction changes 30 degrees and the strength of the wind increases 30%. There is a bottleneck for the N\/S shipping lanes, two reefs only a few nm apart that is located about 30 nm north of my course, the ships to a certain extent fan out before and after the bottleneck. PW would have my sail up towards the bottleneck, but the idea of sailing around the reefs in the dark dodging cargo ships is not appealing. At my latitude the \u201cfan\u201d is about 30 nm wide and usually has 4-6 ships at my latitude. In other words, I will have to in principle negotiate 4-6 crossing situations. In the 4-6h it will take me to sail across the lanes \u2026 one ship an hour. It looks to me like I will be awake midnight to 6:00. I slept 20:00 to 21:00 as the first ship of the night passed 20 nm away going S. At 23:30, three more passed 11, 15, and 22 nm going S. A fifth going S. I started loosing count as the first one N appeared roughly 2.5h away (Shen Hua 801). It communicated with one going S and they agreed to pass one another port to port. The 801 and I may have a crossing situation. It seems I will cross its bow. My boat has been consistent for the past four hours, 6.5 kt on a course of 270. At 23:30 I downloaded new long-range AIS data. It seems if I get past 801 I will be in the clear. Only one vessel to the N is within range and it will cross my bow. Besides the 801, only one vessel to my S is within range and I should cross its bow. Unfortunately, after passing two other cargo ships, 801 changed its course from 005 to 352, putting itself in conflict with me. At 23:45, we are still 90m from resolving that. At 1:30 801 passed my stern by 2 nm. Two other cargo ships are following 901, at 17 and 22 nm. I set an alarm for 1h. By 3:00 the two ships had passed my stern by 2-2.5 nm. I downloaded a new long-range AIS map and found no additional threats from shipping. Sunrise was going to be in 3h. Since the windvane had worked flawlessly all night, I was well-past the reefs, and there was no threat from shipping or apparently weather, I set an alarm for 3h and went to sleep. At 4:20 I woke and checked the AIS. One of the boats N of me had changed course and was headed for me, the Erato. It was doing 11 kt and was 14 kt from me. I changed the alarm for an hour. At 5:20, Ertos was going to pass my bow by over 2 nm in 15m. Another boat had broken out of the pack and was following a course similar to Ertos, Kamaxitha, a 161\u2019 yacht. However, it looked like it was going to pass my stern by some distance in 90m. If it maintains its course, I see no other threats. At 7:00 I downloaded a new GRIB (not much change), AIS data (no additional long-range threats), and Ocean Data. I downloaded the Ocean Data to try to understand the currents. I am currently bucking a westerly 1.3 kt current. PW would have me go N several times to find more favorable currents, but at the cost of adding 55 nm (450 vs 555). The map of currents does predict the present current, but overall I do not see an advantage of sailing the extra 55 nm. I am presently making 5.5 kt SOG even with the westerly current, and it seems unlikely I\u2019d make up the time traveling N. My present heading is about 270 (waypoint at 262), so I am in fact making some ground N, but my logic in doing that is the present TWD of 133 is supposed to back a bit and the wind speed will diminish, to I can use my northerly progress to get some boat speed by moving to a more acute TWA (more of a beam reach). The skies have once more begun partly cloudy with a little bit of sun, but I can already see the clouds\/squalls building. It will be another day without much solar energy production. At 7:50 I unfurled all of the Yankee, increasing the SOG from 5.5 to 5.9. I believe there is a 50:50 chance I will make R1 before dusk on Thursday. If I don\u2019t, I will have a difficult decision that will need to be made early. Either I commit to coming into the anchorage after dark or I heave to offshore. The problems with the former are obvious. Although I have good waypoints and the Navionics charts look good, I won\u2019t be able to see coral heads or boulders when placing the anchor. The problem with the latter is there are prevailing 2 kt currents and winds that can drive me into the reef. I might very well do 3 kt with bare poles. This would require that I heave to at least 50 nm E of the reef, a decision that would have to be made Thursday morning. On a positive note, strong winds and favorable currents are predicted Thursday. Sunrise will be 6:45 and sunset 6:15 at Raine Island on Thursday, which means I\u2019ll have almost 12h of daylight. I will need at least 90m to motor sail from R1 to the anchorage in the Great Detached Reef. This means I will have 10h of daylight to sail Thursday. I can reasonably expect to make at least 5.5 kt on. So, if I am within 55 nm of R1 at sunrise on Thursday, I will go for R1. If I am significantly further away, I may sail a bit S to counter the currents and wind and with heave to. Like I did in Tahiti, if I start going too far downwind\/current, I will compensate by sailing Friday night so as to arrive at R1 during daylight hours. The first squall of the day hit at 11:00 with light rain and an increase in wind speed from 20 to 25 kt. The distance sailed towards R1 in the last 24h was 545-408=137 nm. The total distance sailed was 8235-8088=147 nm (147\/24=6.1 kt avg.).<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current Position: 11 26.314\u2019S 151 00.180\u2019E; Local Timezone: UTC+20 SOG: 6.0 kt COG: 274; TWS: 19 kt; TWD: 148; Distance to Waypoint (R1, Raine Passage, 261): 408; Total Miles Sailed: 8235 nm; Engine Hours: 175 Estimate Fuel: 55+14+50 Comments: Note that beginning with this entry, the time zone will be UTC+20 (NE Australia) and will … <\/p>\n

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