Day 33, April 8

We managed to keep sailing all night. Shortly after dark the wind sagged and the headsail began to fret with an occasional snap. Paradoxically, when running downwind in a dying breeze the best measure is to reduce sail rather than increase it. That slows the boat slightly thereby reducing the apparent wind, an the reduces the flogging of the sail. At dawn our track showed that we had been making 4 kts since the noon waypoint - not brilliant be at least we had kept moving.

The propagation matrix for the Sailmail station in Darawank NSW shows an improving situation, with an increasing number of options of times and frequencies. I connected at the first opportunity on 22 mHz and lost connection after 80% of the message had been sent. I waited 15 minutes for the interference to clear up and when I reconnected the system was smart enough to have stored the partial message so that I had to transmit only the remaining 20%.

The point forecast for the next 3 days was pretty depressing. It looks like I'll have one more day of reasonable sailing, the will have to cool my heels for at least 2 days due to weak winds. No easterly winds were reported as yesterday, which made sense. I could not see how I could possibly get an easterly winds when the highs are west and to the north and the lows are well south. The becalming will be more palatable if we get good sunshine for a change, because it will give me an opportunity to wash a lot of clothes as well as myself. We are close enough to our destination that there is plenty of fresh water for washing, and plenty of diesel fuel for that matter. I've checked the record and I put on this set of clothes on Day 13, March 19, when I donned the Icebreakers. I make that 20 days and it's just as well that I am sailing solo. In suburbia, life is uncomfortable if I cannot have a shower and a change of clothes every day, and downright intolerable if more than 3 days pass. But the rules are different far out over the blue water in a small boat.

It had been 4 days since the last engine run and the battery bank was down to 12.3V. The wind charger had done wonders but could not carry the load of the boat in the dying wind and with no help from the solar panels. Much as I would have preferred to wait until the becalming when the engine would provide some useful propulsion, I did not want to risk the batteries getting down to 12.0V so I started the engine for a 90 minute run. The Monitor continued to steer the boat nicely.

I spent most of the engine run standing in the companionway looking around. For the first time in days the sea was calm enough for me to see the horizon. Then the sky cleared from the south and I enjoyed a weak sunshine. It reminded me of how confined to the cabin I had been for the last 10 days.

The noon numbers were:

POS 40S21, 81E08
NND 102
DMG 3037
DTG 1748

We had barely managed 100 miles for the day and I would consider myself lucky if we could make another 100 miles in the next 24 hours. The wind had fallen to perhaps 13 kts but the swell remained stubbornly high at about 4 meters, making it difficult to carry the sail. After that brief respite of sunshine the sky had closed in again and we were back to an overcast sky. But I cheered up a bit when I realized that we were only 1750 miles from Fremantle and the next round of winds should get us in the neighborhood of the 1000 mile mark.

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