Day 34, April 9

The wind held up throughout the night. In fact, when I woke up for a check in the middle of the night I was relieved to see that it had actually strengthened. At dawn I should have known that something had changed when I began to feel the cold through the two blankets. That meant that there had been a drop in temperature, which turned out to be significant, but because I expected no drastic change and the boat was moving well I rolled over for another 2 hours of sleep.

I was up at 0200 and over a cup of coffee had a close up look at our track and saw that at about 2200 the boat had begun a 35 degree swing to port. We had gone from a heading of 095 to 060. Four hours at that heading had done no damage because over the previous two days we had been drifting south running before the WSW wind and had gotten close to 40S30, so I welcomed a return toward 40S.

I had studied the latest weather fax very hard the previous day and could not understand where the conditions for the forecast of 2 days of desultory winds was coming from. The 1031 hPa high was just far enough to my NW to leave me in its westerly winds, and there was a low of 992 directly south with a cold front headed my way - not a prescription in my mind for slack winds. It appears that it was that cold front on the wfax that had passed at 2200 and the ensuing wind shift to the SW was working better with the westerly winds of the high. If this amateur weather analysis was correct then I could expect to keep sailing for the next two days and for me this was a very big deal. I would be most interested in this morning's weather forecast from Graham as well as a spot forecast that I hoped to download via Sailmail.

I downloaded a fresh spot forecast which provided partial validation of my analysis. Instead of expecting the light winds today at 1800 I could expect them tomorrow at 2100, suggesting another precious day of progress of perhaps 100 miles and more than 2 degrees of longitude. Tomorrow the winds were to be from the SSE which would probably mean a slow drift northwards because I would not want to beat hard into the wind, so I immediately put the boat on a beam reach to keep it south of 40S for the rest of the day.

I have just discussed an interesting forecast with Graham. There is a ridge forming from the high to my west down below my position to the SE. Below that ridge there are WNW winds and above it are SSE winds. He suggested that I might want to sail down to 42.5S it order to avoid being caught by the ridge as it approaches 40S. I explained that with this SSE wind I am fighting just to hold my latitude and I was not prepared to beat into the wind to move to the south. He understood. I didn't raise the point that to get to 42.5S I would have to pass under that trough and get becalmed. Also, I just don't want to descend into the nether regions with its increased risk of icebergs and foul weather. And there is one final and very good reason.

"Ocean Passages", my routing bible, recommends a passage to Fremantle along 39S and 40S and when reaching 90E to make directly for Fremantle. (Jimmy Cornell recommends making the turn at 100E.) At the time of my conversation with Graham we were at longitude 83E08, getting tantalizingly close to the turning point with its prospects of better weather and gentler sailing. I expect to make 85E tomorrow and with luck I'll make the turning point 2 or 3 days after that, so it makes no sense to me to head down to 42.5S only to have to head back toward the north a few days later. It would save me time to simply lay ahull at 40S for a couple of days rather than sail that loop to the south. ... On reflection, I think that perhaps Graham forgot that my destination is Fremantle and I am now on a much different path than Nereida, which is sailing on past the south coast of Tasmania and had to sail at the higher latitudes. I'll mention this to him at our afternoon session.

Graham told me that so far I have managed to be "in the right place at the right time", just managing to take advantage of the winds of the highs and lows. I asked him not to say that too loud because it might break the spell. He laughed and retracted his statement. But seriously, I have been fortunate with the winds and even now I am making haste to the E, trying to stay ahead of the highs and to reach the turning point at 90E.

This boat must have a bloody good transmitter. I could barely hear Graham speaking at this afternoon's SAMMNet session but he told me that he could hear me very clearly at the distance of 3000 miles. I gave my situation report then told him about the cold front that had passed me at 2200 the previous night. Finally I reminded him of my destination and told him about the "Ocean Passages" recommendation to make directly for Fremantle at 90E. Graham copied that OK but was not able to comment because of my poor reception. We agreed to speak again in the morning.

As darkness approached we were moving well off a strong southerly wind. The wind had veered slightly to the S so I took the opportunity to take the boat slightly more off the wind to make our passage easier.

Our noon numbers were:

POS 40S08, 83E39
NND 117 nm
DMG 3160 nm
DTG 1629 nm

It had been a much better day than I could have hoped just one day earlier. My focus these days was on the longitude of our position, because at 90E we could heading to the north directly for Fremantle.

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