Day 42, April 17

The advent of the wind kept stubbornly receding. The morning spot file had predicted it at noon but during the afternoon session Graham talked about 10-15 kts at 1800. At 1500 the wind had still not arrived and we were still stooging along at about 2.5 kts. Outside the sky had cleared and I could see the full canopy of stars with the quarter moon descending into the horizon. It was actually very pleasant sailing, with the boat slicing gently through the calm water and I could look forward to some moonlight sailing in the next few weeks whenever the sky was clear. I scanned the sky for a satellite, which would mark my first visual evidence of human habitation on the planet for over a month but I didn't see one.

At 1530 the Monitor wind charger began humming steadily, which was a good sign. I was up 2 hours later and the wind was still up, not great, but enough to give us 4 kts of speed. The sky was overcast again. At 2100 the wind was still up and we were making close to 5 kts. I was confident that this was the real thing and was looking forward to at least two days of good moderate winds. We were crossing the 1200 nm threshold to Fremantle.

At 0100 I exchanged several messages concerning the engine. There has been nothing conclusive, but there has been a variety of possibilities of varying degrees of likelihood. At the moment my best guess is a faulty oil pressure sender. My next step is to inspect and clean every harness connection between the engine and EVC panel. Then I'll run the engine and if/when the oil pressure alarm comes on I'll set the revs to idle and as quickly as I can loosen a nut that should seep oil if there is any pressure in the system. But the engine run may just not happen today. I got through the night drawing only 1.1 amps. I've started using the manual bilge pump in the cockpit rather than the electric one. Then the sun came out and I was staring at a net flow of 3.5-4.5 amps into the batteries and if it stayed out for a while we could finish the day with the batteries in good shape. I figure that the less I run the engine the better.

Then I faced the task of shaking out the second reef. The morning's spot forecast indicated moderate winds for the next 2 days with a brief period of 23 kts. I felt that I had an obligation to maximize my distance per day so up went the sail to the 1st reef. I had to work carefully because I had to deal with new things such as retrieving the 1st reef line from the 3rd reef cringle, keeping track of which lines now belonged to which reef, and managing the shock cord tie downs to the boom. My biggest difficulty turned out to be the passing of the 1st reef line through the cringle. That section of the sail was hanging upside down in a fold below the boom and I had to visualize the sail up in order to figure out the path of the line. Of course I screwed it up with two mistakes but I must say that I made a good recovery. Hopefully the sails were now set for the next 2 day and I would regulate the amount of canvas by rolling the headsail.

I must confess that I am getting to like sailing without a spray dodger. I've come to enjoy the advantages of much better and safer access to the forward deck area because I now have all sorts of things around the companionway to hang on to. Working my way back to the cockpit I can throw ropes or other material down the hatch and freeing my hands before I climb into the cockpit. When doing the reefing work it is so much easier and safer to stand in the companionway to work on the aft reefing lines of the boom. With the spray dodger in position I must do this work stretching awkwardly from the seat to get reach around the dodger. ... It's all about tradeoffs, folks.

I got good copy from Graham in the early session and he was able to give me a wind forecast at 6 hour intervals for 4 days until Sunday, in case reception deteriorated again. The forecast looked very good to me, with winds generally at 20 kts or higher, with one 12 hour period of winds 10-15 kts. All winds will be on an arc from NW to W to SSW. While I will be experiencing westerlies south of Cape Leeuwin there will be southerlies up the west coast of Australia. To me the forecast offered a prospect of sailing with fair and gentle winds. I thanked Graham for his long forecast and told him that I was very happy with it. He asked if there was anything more that he could do and I asked him to send more sunshine, but he was understandably non committal

During Graham's experience with Jean Socrates in these waters he said that for some reason his reception deteriorates from around this longitude until 110E where for some reason it picks up again. He thinks that it might have something to do with being in a dead zone between skips of our HF signals. Nevertheless we will continue with the sessions and I am somewhat optimistic because he said that I have a stronger transmitter than Jean did and I must admit that I cannot recall one session where even Sam with his coastal rig could not hear me. Even when I could not hear him or Sam I was always able to tell them my position and status.

Graham thanked me for a Sailmail message that I had sent to not worry too much if he could not get weather reports to me because I was now getting weather faxes out of Australia and spot forecasts from Sailmail. I wrote that I didn't think that they were as good as his forecasts because, for example, the weather faxes showed the situation in the past and not what was expected in the future, and the spot forecasts did not provide a comprehensive picture. Also, I liked the daily human contact and the ability to tell someone of my position and status.

Our numbers at 0800 UTC were:

POS 39S20, 93E54
NND 101 nm
DMG 3672 nm
DTG 1143 nm

It was our first 100 mile day since April 10, one week earlier.

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