Day 29, April 4

I have just managed to send the last blog (Day 28) through the Sailmail station VZX at Darawank, NSW, Australia at a distance of 3980 nautical miles using 22 mHz. I was amazed and very pleased because it gives me a second avenue Sailmail communication. The transfer rate wasn't great at 241 bytes per minute but the more important point is that I've done it at all, with the prospect improvement as I close in on Australia.

I was having trouble getting a connection to the S Africa station and after 10 minutes of trying I decided to back off for 20 or 30 minutes and try again just before the optimal propagation time passed. On a whim I decided to see the propagation matrix for the Australia station. The best I could get was a dismal rating of 62 at 22.649 mHz. I had nothing to lose so I tried to connect and then it all happened. The higher frequencies that I have been forced to use lately seem to have less frequency bleed and cross talk than the lower frequencies, and this could explain the good results in spite of low ratings. In any event I am a little more optimistic about my Sailmail communication prospects during the rest of this passage. After all, I am at mid ocean and am still communicating.

This came on the heels of a brilliantly clear weather fax out of Wiluna. I don't think that weather faxes will be an issue for the rest of this passage.

.. And Radio Australia and the BBC are getting stronger. It's all happening, folks!

The noon numbers were:

POS 39S53, 70E31
NND 78 nm
DMG 2532 nm
DTG 2252 nm

The boat lay ahull for 8.5 out of the previous 24 hours. Nevertheless between the sailing, drifting, and motoring we had managed to eke out the 78 miles for the day, and I couldn't complain.

St Paul Island was only 320 miles ahead and slightly to my north. Once again I brought out the paper chart and dividers and checked the position of the island, in particular its latitude. It was no surprise that the island had not moved since my last check, but I felt better.

Just before sunset I prepared the boat for the night. Even though the wind was still below 20 kts I hoisted the staysail in front of the jib, went another 10 degrees off the wind, and found that both sails were drawing well with the headsail lightly loaded because of the staysail, which was good. When the wind piped up to 25 kts as expected during the night I would head the boat 10 degrees more downwind so that it would better blanket the jib, then have an easier time for myself and the rig of rolling the required amount of sail. I wanted to avoid at all costs leaving the headsail as it was then in the middle of the night when the wind was up and the sea rough have to fight to roll it in then visit the foredeck to prepare the staysail for hoisting. While I was on the foredeck and had a good look at the rigging, lines, and headsail, and everything looked OK. The Monitor lines were nice and snug. Time for a Heineken. (I wished I had an Emu Export beer for old times sake.)

I really enjoyed that beer. For once the sky was clear and there was a beautiful red sunset. I had the beer standing on the companionway landing with my torso sticking out of the boat and a 360 degree view because there was no spray dodger. The sea was lumpy but not threatening, the temperature was mild (20C inside the cabin), and all around me were the ubiquitous shearwaters and petrels showing me how life should be lived.

I was up at 2315, 2 hours before dawn (remember that the boat is on UTC time) and found everything going to plan and satisfactory. Before going to bed I had done some work with the charting program. The chart plotter is now as jerky as the other GPS's in reporting heading and speed, and the wind instrument has stopped working again. I estimate the course and speed by averaging the numbers as they jump around, but the best way is to project the recent segment of track to get the actual heading, and to divide recent distance made by time to get the actual speed. This is a rear view mirror look at things but is very accurate. I projected our track and we were on a course of 070. The expected 2 days on this track with strong NW winds would put be close to the midpoint between St Paul and Amsterdam islands. The expected change of wind after the cold front passed would then put me on a SE course passing about 60 miles to the west of St Paul. These were very rough estimates but the results were too close to my liking. I didn't want to risk finding myself in the vicinity of these islands at night. I could gybe at any time but that would put me on a SE heading and a bit wide of my mark. I rolled in the headsail which had not been contributing much anyway, eased the sheet on the staysail a bit, then altered the Monitor airvane to take us as much downwind as possible. Now at 2315 I could see from the actual track that I had altered course by a full 20 degrees and our course made good was if anything slightly to the south of E, so the St Paul issue was resolved and we were on an optimal course, which was most satisfactory. The wind was up to close to the 25 kts predicted for this time of the night and our distance made good showed that although we were not exactly racing along, we were headed for a NND comfortably greater than 100 nm, All this was so far a minimum price: the boat was moving comfortably and no waves were crashing over the deck. This would probably changed as the wind increased to 30 kts and the seas built up accordingly.

I took my time getting out of the bunk because at dawn the boat was traveling well and there was nothing to be done. At 0300 the wind was still well below the 30 kt forecast for 0600. I examined our track and calculated that we had averaged 5.5 kts directly to E over night so I was happy with my decision to run with just the staysail. In zooming in to the chart for making the course and speed assessments I saw that St Paul and Amsterdam islands were indeed depicted on the chart and it was a matter of zooming in far enough to see them. My top mark was smack in the middle of Amsterdam Island and the lower mark was between St Paul and the sea mount nearby to the south. OpenCPN was using my bootleg CMap charts covering the entire planet. With that corroboration I would have been willing to sail as close as 10 miles from the islands in the dead of night, but I still would have been uneasy.

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