Day 91 - Plans for Next Phase

The wind began to calm down during the night. Even though I was only 27 miles off the coast I could see no lights from the shore. Even when I had Stanley to the beam I could not see even the lights of the port. When I arose at 11 AM local time the sky was clear and the wind had shifted to the NW. I altered sail to take us back to a NE heading and looked back towards the Falklands coast 32 miles away and still saw nothing. I suspect that the Falklands are rather low lying with no tall mountains.

It would have been very easy to call in on Stanley. Several days before, Brenda and Stephen had provided me with everything that I needed to know about the entry procedure, the services provided, the charges, etc. This even included a message from the Stanley harbor master which included the name of a person who would coordinate whatever repair services were available. My C-Map chart showed the harbor to be well sheltered and even showed the floating Customs pontoon. Unfortunately, helpful and obliging as the island seemed to be, it could offer no formal commercial repair services such as rigging and sail repair. Some repairs could be done by private citizens, but no specifics were given. Nothing could be promised on spares. Everything could be ordered from the UK but of course that would take time. I would be allowed only 24 hours on the Customs pontoon and thereafter would have to either lease a mooring or ride at anchor, and I didn't relish the prospect of relying on the Zodiac in the cold and damp climate for my transport to shore. After thinking about it overnight I decided that my situation was not dire enough to warrant a stop. By then I had jury rigged my second rigging failure and I thought that I had a good shot at making it to Cape Town without mishap.

But with characteristic ambivalence, on this bright and sunny morning I had second thoughts. If I could confirm by radio that water and diesel were available and I could dispose of my garbage at the pontoon a 24 hour visit might be warranted. I might even be able to procure more bulldog U-clamps and wire. Given my current position it would cost me only 2 days. But I decided not to break my momentum and would push on. I had sufficient diesel, had yet to tap into my port tank with 140 liters of water, and the garbage was plastic material that had all been washed and had no odor. The key issue was the state of the sail and rigging and time would tell if I had made the right decision. It would have nice to have stepped ashore at Stanley and met some of the residents but on the other hand there would be the grim satisfaction of knowing that I had made it all of the way to Cape Town non stop in spite of my problems. Ambivalence. That's a concise word that says that you want it both ways.

Then I started looking ahead. I was approximately 3500 sea miles from Cape Town. With the fair current and prevailing wind I thought that a conservative 80 miles of progress a day, representing an average of only 3.3 knots, was a realistic assumption for my planning. (Don't forget that there will be days of total calm, according to the pilot chart. In Fremantle I had planned on 120 miles per day in this leg.) That represented another 45 days at sea, for which I had enough water and diesel on board. I had plenty of food and other provisions.) To maintain that modest average I was willing to push the boat a little harder. After consulting once again the excellent current and sail route charts of "Ocean Passages" my plan was to head NE until I reached latitude 42S then proceed east on that latitude, passing south of Gough Island which is at (40.3S, 009.9W). Once past Gough Island I would head ENE making directly for Cape Town a further 1400 miles ahead. According to the chart I would have the strong Southern Ocean Current behind me most of the way, which could be worth 20 miles per day. The climatic chart for January showed a permanent high centered between S. America and Africa at 30S. The average number of days per month that the wind would be Force 7 (28-33 kt) or higher was 5. The pilot chart showed the winds to be generally favorable. From that look at the pilot chart I reduced the variation in the chart plotter to only 4 degrees west. I had no complaints about the prospects of the sailing conditions to Cape Town.

At noon our position was 51S27, 56W30, giving us a n-n distance of 105 miles in the direction 032T. It was a bright sunny day and we were making about 4.5 knots to the NE off of a 22 kt NW wind. We were almost 60 miles away from Stanley.

Total engine hours was at 202. I had done a oil and filter change at 72 hours so I would be able to wait until I got to Cape Town before changing the oils and filter and still be well within the prescribed time.

At 10 PM local time we were still moving nicely to the NE with a moderate NW wind. I wasn't sure whether what I had been experiencing was normal to the area or I had been just plain lucky, but the winds for the last 3 days had been very good to us.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com