Day 29 - In the Eastern Hemisphere

It turned out to be a good sailing night. The wind piped up to over 25 kts in the late afternoon but soon settled down to 18-20 kts for the entire night. At about 9 PM I spotted a ship on AIS that was only 11 miles away, yet the TCPA (Time of Closest Point of Approach) was over 90 minutes away. It was a cargo ship heading east as I was at only 12 kts, making our speed difference only 6 kts. AIS estimated that it would come too close for my comfort so I called it twice by position and heading, with no response. 15 minutes later it was close enough for me to receive all of its AIS data and I called the ship by name and got an immediate response in good English.

Yes, he had me on his radar and would keep a watch on me. I moved the airvane to take Pachuca as much downwind as possible but the boat was still slewing around a lot and at times AIS was estimating our CPA as less than 300 ft. I called the ship, explained the situation, and asked that it alter course to port 5 degrees. The ship's officer was most obliging and altered course 10 degrees. An hour later when it was safe I altered to windvane to put us slightly more into the wind and avoid the sail stalling every few minutes. The ship resumed its course at about the same time and our paths crossed, Pachuca heading about 090T and the ship at 100T. With that I hit the sack with no alarm set.

I was up at 6 AM to prepare for the 6.30 AM SAMMNet session but unfortunately the reception was not good enough for communication with Graham. Interestingly, I heard a position report to Graham from a sailor who was 100 miles off the island of St Helena.

At 0700 UTC almost to the minute, Pachuca crossed the prime meridian which passes through Greenwich England. For the first time since the middle of 2008 Pachuca and her master were back in the eastern hemisphere of the world. We now had to traverse another 115 degrees of longitude in order to reach Fremantle, 5700 miles away.

I received a reply from Ian, Manager of the RCYC. The marina can accommodate Pachuca for the entire visit. Ian quoted the price in "ZAR", which must be the S African currency and I sent a reply asking for the rough equivalency in US or Aussie dollars. Anyway, the important thing is that Pachuca will have a home waiting for her.

At 10.30 AM we were 900 miles from CT.

At noon our position was 36S00, 00E38, giving a n-n distance of 140 miles in the direction 087T. This represented a new n-n high for the passage, and we were now 890 miles from CT. The barometer had dipped slightly but had risen to the same 1013 HPa as on the previous day. We were still moving nicely at over 6.5 kts to the east.

The ocean was starting to become crowded. While preparing the noon report I was watching on the chart plotter a ship to the north of me headed west and another one to the south of me heading east. I re checked the AIS alarm settings. The northern target displayed variable headings and speeds in the range 2.5-4.5 kts, suggesting to me that it was another small boat.

At 5 PM we were still moving well at about 6 kts to the east. I suited up and spent some time in the cockpit looking around. The Monitor lines were tight enough and the headsail was faring well. The spray dodger was coping well and everything else looked OK. I have a policy of spending most of my time buttoned up inside the cabin for reasons of safety. However, I make it a point to visit the cockpit several times a day because I don't want to feel alienated and afraid of the topside of the boat. I like to go up and look at everything in the eye as it were, particularly the ocean, because I must feel comfortable rushing up at any time to attend to a problem.

My grib file was out of date because I had not been able to download the latest one on the previous night. The last slender piece of weather prediction I had were from Graham on SAMMNet two days earlier who had predicted W/NW winds of 20/25 kts at 1800 today and W/SW at 10/20 kts at 0600 in the morning. I would have to wake up at frequent intervals throughout the night to deal with the wind change.

Regarding SAMMNet, I was ready at the 0630 session but could not hear Graham. However, I was able to hear a sailor 100 miles of St Helena Island about 1900 miles to the north reporting his position to Graham. I was not able to raise him at the 1130 session either. I am still not able to raise Sam on 7.120 MHz LSB for the coastal report, but at 900 miles I am probably too far away for that frequency.

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