29/9/2021 Still at Fiji
David,
No, we’ve put off departure as there’s a front coming through with 30kn gusts so we’re delaying until Sunday at this time. (Review every day). Gerry.
Anybody near Sunderland, see Announcements. David
20
Coopers Quest
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Tue Sep 28, 2021 9:20 am
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Sun Oct 03, 2021 11:18 am
Leaving of Fiji
03 October 2021
17 46.369'S: 177 22.935'E, Port Denarau marina , Fiji
Weather; overcast,
So it's time to get my act together and bring you up to date with the past couple of weeks as we prepare to set sail for the final leg of our trip. We are heading out from Fiji today and bound for Brisbane. We expect it is going to take us between 10 and 14 days but as always it will depend on what weather patterns we encounter along the way. We had originally planned to leave a week ago but we were thwarted by a weather window slamming shut just as we were preparing to leave, the system that went through would have seen us battling high winds and even worse, high wave heights and we didn't want to make the final trip one that we would regret so we hung around in Fiji for the extra week. But let's back track a bit and fill you in on how we have spent the time here in Fiji.
As you know we arrived here with a few things that needed fixing and our priority was to get all of those things sorted out as soon as possible. After going through the checking in process and getting our Blue Lane clearance flag which gave us leave to travel around Fiji if we wanted to, our first objective was to find the businesses that could sort out our issues as much as possible.
At the marina there is an awesome business, Revmarine electronics, which was our first stopping off point, the owner (Rev) is a wonderful man who managed to source just about everything we needed to fix stuff.
So that was the first thing out of the way, once we had the plate in hand Gerry took apart his McGyvered fix and fitted the new plate, it looks like the real thing and at least it is now safe to use.
But I have to say that Gerry's temporary fix was just great, he did a really good job on it and I'm sure that it would have got us home to Australia if the need had arisen.
So with that out of the way Gerry asked Rev if he knew of anywhere we would be able to find brushes for our water maker after having explained the difficulty we had getting them and at the same time we had Rev look at the hydraulic boom panel and explained about the leaking hydraulic fluid. Gerry and Rev both think that a new seal kit will fix the problem, the next problem is finding the right kit for the particular model that we have and to this end they both began searching for a supplier.
Gerry won the race and found the supplier who is based in France, via Australia (of course why wouldn't they be) anyway he arranged on line to have the kit sent to us here in Fiji by express mail. If you are thinking uh oh, that doesn't sound good, you have hit the nail on the head.
The parcel has been in the system for about a week now, it was supposed to arrive here into Fiji on the 28th Sept, as of today we are still waiting. We have tracked it to Australia and from there it should be winging its way to here but we will be long gone.
Rev's address is the delivery address so he is going to mail it back to us in Australia once it gets to him and then we will find someone to sort it out in Australia.
On the plus side though Rev managed to find someone to manufacture the brushes that we needed for our water maker and there wasn't an 8 week lead time, we had them in hand by the end of the week! Gerry has installed them and we have been running them in ( apparently they need a bit of wearing down to work properly). So our water maker has been run on a daily basis but we have discarded all of the water that we have made as we don't really want to be keeping water that has been made in a marina (too many nasties in the marina water) but once we are under way and out in open water we will be making our own water once more - winning on that score!
So on to other stuff that needed fixing, I'm sure I have mentioned that our sails have taken a bit of a battering and needed some attention. We were directed to a sail maker and briefly told him what we thought needed doing - new sacrificial edges to both the Yankee (jib) and the staysail, a new or a fix of the cringle on the main and repairs to some of the slides on the main, patching of the sail bag where the lazy jacks had rubbed a tear at one point, new lazy jack line on one side plus we needed new zippers in one of the cockpit cushions and in the front window of the Dodger.
All this was before we had chance to take down the sails and have a look at them. The sail maker said he would come back in 2 days to collect the sails etc, giving us a chance to get them down and ready to go. The next morning we started off early and took down the biggest sail - the main, luckily there was no breeze at this point and we managed to get it down on the deck, quickly inspected it finding nothing else major that needed attention, dropped the entire sail over the side of the boat and on to the dock where we got the sail flaked and folded and into the sail bag ready to go.
At this point we were briefly interrupted by one of Rev's workers who had come by to check out something on the hydraulic panel. Once he had gone it was back to the job at hand, getting the sails down. Unfortunately by now there was a slight breeze kicking in and stupidly Gerry chose to take down the easier sail of the two, the stay sail. Down it came with a bit of tugging and holding firmly in place until it was safely on the deck, then as we did with the main, we checked it over quickly noting that a few places needed stitching reinforcing but otherwise it was just the sacrificial that needed replacing. We dropped this one over the side of the boat and onto the dock where we managed to flake and fold it neatly and tie it up, there is no bag for this sail, ready for the off.
So now we come to the stupid bit, taking down the Yankee. The wind had picked up, not blowing a gale but a little gusty to be taking down sails in. Gerry couldn't be persuaded to wait and do it first thing in the morning when it would be calmer, he wanted it over and done with so we pulled out the sail ready to lower it to the deck and began sailing in the dock. I held on to the bottom edge of the sail and the sheet whilst Gerry attempted to get it down onto the deck, it was comical for anyone that was watching I'm sure and it reminded me of the children's movie called "UP" where a house lifts off under the lifting power of a heap of balloons. As the sail began to drop towards the deck and I couldn't control it enough it dropped towards the water into the slip next to us, I scrambled to try and keep as much out of the water as possible whilst Gerry continued to let the damn thing down.
We managed to get it all down onto the deck but there was no way in the world we were going to be able to drop it over the side of the boat and flake it and fold it neatly like the other two sails so we pushed and poked it into some sort of rolled up shape and then stuffed it as hard as we could manage into the sail bag, it wasn't pretty! We did get a brief look at the sail and noted that the cringle on this one was wearing through the fabric, much like the one on the main but not quite as bad yet, it would need seeing to sooner rather than later to prevent a future disaster when we were underway. So now that the sails were down there was just one last thing to get ready, the sail bag and lazy jacks needed to be taken down and bundled up, this was just a case of sliding the whole lot out of the boom and rolling up, again it wasn't a pretty job but at least it was ready to go when the sail maker came.
We noticed one more job that needed attention once the main was removed, the car that carried the sail along the boom track was in need of new rollers as they were worn through completely and the car wasn't moving as it should, this job went to Rev who had new rollers made and returned to us within 2 days.
Unfortunately Gerry had given him the size specs and the guys had made them exactly to Gerry's specs which turned out to be slightly too big so Gerry spent a couple of hours trimming the new rollers to a slightly smaller size. Once that was done the car was refitted inside the boom and now runs smoothly along it.
The sails were back by the end of the week and the guys that delivered them were supposed to help put everything back up (including going up the mast to re secure the lazy jacks in place) however they came late on the Friday and promised to return on Monday.
Now I'm sure you will realise that Gerry wasn't going to wait for a whole 2 days to put the sails back up so first thing on the Saturday morning we we
re out on deck and niggling at each other as we undertook the job of putting the Yankee and staysail back up in a light breeze. I did the usual job of feeding the sail into the slot as Gerry winched the sail up each forestay.
Again we were battling against sailing in the dock and the Yankee was doing its best to try and knock me off my feet and into the water but we eventually got it in place and furled away.
The job on the cringle was well done, we are very happy with it and it will certainly last the distance. I'm not so happy about the sacrificial though as the sail maker didn't have enough fabric to re-do them entirely so he, with Gerry's agreement, just patched them. There is also the issue of the fact that he didn't have the get up early in the morning when the wind hadn't woken up yet. Putting the sail bag and lazy jacks up came first, this was the bit that Gerry wanted the sail guys to do as it meant a mast climb and a lot of fiddling around. The sail bag was first slid into place along the boom then out came the bosun's chair and winch handle and we tried to arrange the lazy jack lines as they are meant to sit.
Gerry got himself ready to climb the mast but whilst we were at it he thought he would run a new topping lift line and 2 new flag halyards (one of ours had broken and the other was on its last legs). So the mast climb/winch began with a full run to the top where the topping lift was attached, then it was a lowering of the baby elephant down to the level of the spreader where the lazy jacks needed to be attached. First the port side was run and I had to tie it off at the deck level so that it didn't vanish back up to the spreader, the same process followed on the starboard side then Gerry asked to be lowered back down to the deck which I did. Once he was at deck
level he realised that he hadn't done the flag halyards despite having them with him and ready to go.
A few salty pirate words followed and then it was another climb/winch up the mast to the level of the first spreader and the flag halyards were replaced in short time, then it was back down to earth and on to getting the main sail in place. The main is a big heavy sail and it took all of both our combined strengths to get the battens inserted in their pockets ( these are made of fibreglass and the photo of Gerry shows him wearing gloves as the fibreglass takes no prisoners and is a bitch to keep out of your skin) then the sail itself into the track with much heaving and pushing and niggly instructions and answers but eventually it was fully in place. We now had to raise it part of the way to get it to flake down inside the sail bag. At this point Gerry let out a groan as he realised that he had twisted the lazy jacks the wrong way around when he put them through the turning block at the top, this meant another trip up the mast, honestly 3 times in one day is more than anyone needs but it had to be done or we couldn't put the sail away.
Back into the bosun's chair, heave, climb, yell, heave climb yell and eventually he was at the point where he could adjust the lines. Reluctant to let him down again? You bet, but he was just as peeved about it as I was so I let him back down to the deck and we hoisted the sail enough to be able to run the 2 reefing lines through their respective cringles and then got the sail to drop back down and into the sail bag. The last bit was the zippering up of the bag which went according to plan. We now had all three sails back in place; hopefully both reefing points on the main are correctly rigged but only time will tell.
03 October 2021
17 46.369'S: 177 22.935'E, Port Denarau marina , Fiji
Weather; overcast,
So it's time to get my act together and bring you up to date with the past couple of weeks as we prepare to set sail for the final leg of our trip. We are heading out from Fiji today and bound for Brisbane. We expect it is going to take us between 10 and 14 days but as always it will depend on what weather patterns we encounter along the way. We had originally planned to leave a week ago but we were thwarted by a weather window slamming shut just as we were preparing to leave, the system that went through would have seen us battling high winds and even worse, high wave heights and we didn't want to make the final trip one that we would regret so we hung around in Fiji for the extra week. But let's back track a bit and fill you in on how we have spent the time here in Fiji.
As you know we arrived here with a few things that needed fixing and our priority was to get all of those things sorted out as soon as possible. After going through the checking in process and getting our Blue Lane clearance flag which gave us leave to travel around Fiji if we wanted to, our first objective was to find the businesses that could sort out our issues as much as possible.
At the marina there is an awesome business, Revmarine electronics, which was our first stopping off point, the owner (Rev) is a wonderful man who managed to source just about everything we needed to fix stuff.
So that was the first thing out of the way, once we had the plate in hand Gerry took apart his McGyvered fix and fitted the new plate, it looks like the real thing and at least it is now safe to use.
- McGyvered broken chain plate temporary fix.jpeg (6.05 KiB) Viewed 6823 times
But I have to say that Gerry's temporary fix was just great, he did a really good job on it and I'm sure that it would have got us home to Australia if the need had arisen.
- Broken and new chain plates.jpeg (8.96 KiB) Viewed 6823 times
So with that out of the way Gerry asked Rev if he knew of anywhere we would be able to find brushes for our water maker after having explained the difficulty we had getting them and at the same time we had Rev look at the hydraulic boom panel and explained about the leaking hydraulic fluid. Gerry and Rev both think that a new seal kit will fix the problem, the next problem is finding the right kit for the particular model that we have and to this end they both began searching for a supplier.
- New chain plate fitted.jpeg (8.21 KiB) Viewed 6823 times
Gerry won the race and found the supplier who is based in France, via Australia (of course why wouldn't they be) anyway he arranged on line to have the kit sent to us here in Fiji by express mail. If you are thinking uh oh, that doesn't sound good, you have hit the nail on the head.
The parcel has been in the system for about a week now, it was supposed to arrive here into Fiji on the 28th Sept, as of today we are still waiting. We have tracked it to Australia and from there it should be winging its way to here but we will be long gone.
Rev's address is the delivery address so he is going to mail it back to us in Australia once it gets to him and then we will find someone to sort it out in Australia.
On the plus side though Rev managed to find someone to manufacture the brushes that we needed for our water maker and there wasn't an 8 week lead time, we had them in hand by the end of the week! Gerry has installed them and we have been running them in ( apparently they need a bit of wearing down to work properly). So our water maker has been run on a daily basis but we have discarded all of the water that we have made as we don't really want to be keeping water that has been made in a marina (too many nasties in the marina water) but once we are under way and out in open water we will be making our own water once more - winning on that score!
So on to other stuff that needed fixing, I'm sure I have mentioned that our sails have taken a bit of a battering and needed some attention. We were directed to a sail maker and briefly told him what we thought needed doing - new sacrificial edges to both the Yankee (jib) and the staysail, a new or a fix of the cringle on the main and repairs to some of the slides on the main, patching of the sail bag where the lazy jacks had rubbed a tear at one point, new lazy jack line on one side plus we needed new zippers in one of the cockpit cushions and in the front window of the Dodger.
- Main cringle almost worn through.jpeg (72.41 KiB) Viewed 6823 times
All this was before we had chance to take down the sails and have a look at them. The sail maker said he would come back in 2 days to collect the sails etc, giving us a chance to get them down and ready to go. The next morning we started off early and took down the biggest sail - the main, luckily there was no breeze at this point and we managed to get it down on the deck, quickly inspected it finding nothing else major that needed attention, dropped the entire sail over the side of the boat and on to the dock where we got the sail flaked and folded and into the sail bag ready to go.
At this point we were briefly interrupted by one of Rev's workers who had come by to check out something on the hydraulic panel. Once he had gone it was back to the job at hand, getting the sails down. Unfortunately by now there was a slight breeze kicking in and stupidly Gerry chose to take down the easier sail of the two, the stay sail. Down it came with a bit of tugging and holding firmly in place until it was safely on the deck, then as we did with the main, we checked it over quickly noting that a few places needed stitching reinforcing but otherwise it was just the sacrificial that needed replacing. We dropped this one over the side of the boat and onto the dock where we managed to flake and fold it neatly and tie it up, there is no bag for this sail, ready for the off.
So now we come to the stupid bit, taking down the Yankee. The wind had picked up, not blowing a gale but a little gusty to be taking down sails in. Gerry couldn't be persuaded to wait and do it first thing in the morning when it would be calmer, he wanted it over and done with so we pulled out the sail ready to lower it to the deck and began sailing in the dock. I held on to the bottom edge of the sail and the sheet whilst Gerry attempted to get it down onto the deck, it was comical for anyone that was watching I'm sure and it reminded me of the children's movie called "UP" where a house lifts off under the lifting power of a heap of balloons. As the sail began to drop towards the deck and I couldn't control it enough it dropped towards the water into the slip next to us, I scrambled to try and keep as much out of the water as possible whilst Gerry continued to let the damn thing down.
We managed to get it all down onto the deck but there was no way in the world we were going to be able to drop it over the side of the boat and flake it and fold it neatly like the other two sails so we pushed and poked it into some sort of rolled up shape and then stuffed it as hard as we could manage into the sail bag, it wasn't pretty! We did get a brief look at the sail and noted that the cringle on this one was wearing through the fabric, much like the one on the main but not quite as bad yet, it would need seeing to sooner rather than later to prevent a future disaster when we were underway. So now that the sails were down there was just one last thing to get ready, the sail bag and lazy jacks needed to be taken down and bundled up, this was just a case of sliding the whole lot out of the boom and rolling up, again it wasn't a pretty job but at least it was ready to go when the sail maker came.
We noticed one more job that needed attention once the main was removed, the car that carried the sail along the boom track was in need of new rollers as they were worn through completely and the car wasn't moving as it should, this job went to Rev who had new rollers made and returned to us within 2 days.
Unfortunately Gerry had given him the size specs and the guys had made them exactly to Gerry's specs which turned out to be slightly too big so Gerry spent a couple of hours trimming the new rollers to a slightly smaller size. Once that was done the car was refitted inside the boom and now runs smoothly along it.
The sails were back by the end of the week and the guys that delivered them were supposed to help put everything back up (including going up the mast to re secure the lazy jacks in place) however they came late on the Friday and promised to return on Monday.
Now I'm sure you will realise that Gerry wasn't going to wait for a whole 2 days to put the sails back up so first thing on the Saturday morning we we
re out on deck and niggling at each other as we undertook the job of putting the Yankee and staysail back up in a light breeze. I did the usual job of feeding the sail into the slot as Gerry winched the sail up each forestay.
Again we were battling against sailing in the dock and the Yankee was doing its best to try and knock me off my feet and into the water but we eventually got it in place and furled away.
- Repaired main sail cringle.jpeg (6.62 KiB) Viewed 6823 times
The job on the cringle was well done, we are very happy with it and it will certainly last the distance. I'm not so happy about the sacrificial though as the sail maker didn't have enough fabric to re-do them entirely so he, with Gerry's agreement, just patched them. There is also the issue of the fact that he didn't have the get up early in the morning when the wind hadn't woken up yet. Putting the sail bag and lazy jacks up came first, this was the bit that Gerry wanted the sail guys to do as it meant a mast climb and a lot of fiddling around. The sail bag was first slid into place along the boom then out came the bosun's chair and winch handle and we tried to arrange the lazy jack lines as they are meant to sit.
Gerry got himself ready to climb the mast but whilst we were at it he thought he would run a new topping lift line and 2 new flag halyards (one of ours had broken and the other was on its last legs). So the mast climb/winch began with a full run to the top where the topping lift was attached, then it was a lowering of the baby elephant down to the level of the spreader where the lazy jacks needed to be attached. First the port side was run and I had to tie it off at the deck level so that it didn't vanish back up to the spreader, the same process followed on the starboard side then Gerry asked to be lowered back down to the deck which I did. Once he was at deck
level he realised that he hadn't done the flag halyards despite having them with him and ready to go.
A few salty pirate words followed and then it was another climb/winch up the mast to the level of the first spreader and the flag halyards were replaced in short time, then it was back down to earth and on to getting the main sail in place. The main is a big heavy sail and it took all of both our combined strengths to get the battens inserted in their pockets ( these are made of fibreglass and the photo of Gerry shows him wearing gloves as the fibreglass takes no prisoners and is a bitch to keep out of your skin) then the sail itself into the track with much heaving and pushing and niggly instructions and answers but eventually it was fully in place. We now had to raise it part of the way to get it to flake down inside the sail bag. At this point Gerry let out a groan as he realised that he had twisted the lazy jacks the wrong way around when he put them through the turning block at the top, this meant another trip up the mast, honestly 3 times in one day is more than anyone needs but it had to be done or we couldn't put the sail away.
- Lazyjacks.png.png (189.38 KiB) Viewed 6817 times
Back into the bosun's chair, heave, climb, yell, heave climb yell and eventually he was at the point where he could adjust the lines. Reluctant to let him down again? You bet, but he was just as peeved about it as I was so I let him back down to the deck and we hoisted the sail enough to be able to run the 2 reefing lines through their respective cringles and then got the sail to drop back down and into the sail bag. The last bit was the zippering up of the bag which went according to plan. We now had all three sails back in place; hopefully both reefing points on the main are correctly rigged but only time will tell.
Last edited by David Fox on Sun Oct 03, 2021 9:21 pm, edited 11 times in total.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Sun Oct 03, 2021 11:47 am
Leaving Fiji 2
Our main fixing jobs were well in hand by now and we could concentrate on doing the tidying up and getting ready for the final passage, read a whole lot of cleaning and clearing out of rubbish plus topping up of oils, food and changing out of filters.
Our first point to check was the local marina store (it's really a glorified fishing sport shop with a couple of bits thrown in for good measure, not a proper chandlery with anything that would be useful) as to be expected they didn't have a replacement light so it was back to Rev once more - if anyone knew where to get one it would be him. A day later and we had a perfect replacement light, and what is hopefully a last mast climb/winch to fit the new light in place and test it, once we established that it was working properly it was time to have a beer and pack the bosun's chair away for good.
We had now finished all of the repairs and maintenance stuff and were ready to leave Fiji, unfortunately the weather gods didn't agree and held us captive here for a further week. In many ways it was good as we finally got to do nothing and relax, the sad bit was that the country is still under quite restrictive rules due to Covid and most places remain shut or on limited opening and no gathering of more than 10 people, mask wearing is mandatory, temperature checks and contact tracing details recorded if you go into anywhere. So what did we do in the week we stayed? Big fat nothing, we didn't leave the port area at all, stocked up in the local mini mart, cooked up stuff on the boat for the onward trip, read our books , drank as much alcohol as we could manage and watched a couple of Netflix series. We would have loved to go inland and explore but there was nothing open and nowhere to go to so we missed out. Talking to some of the yachties on the dock who have spent a couple of season here, it would have been a great place to spend some time and explore but we were just in the right place at the wrong time.
Cutting a long story short, we took down the dodger so that the middle window could have a new zipper put in and we asked the canvas man to move the zippers on each side of the exit windows as we hadn't been able to do them up since having the dodger replaced in Cartagena.
Once the sails had gone the sail maker said he would send the canvas worker to have a look at the Zipper work we needed doing.
We had the canvas back within a day and a half but then the man had to take away the doors as he had completely replaced half of the zipper in the exit and needed to replace the opposite part in the door.
Well in the end we had exit doors that now close once more so all was good on the canvas front, oh and he replaced the broken zipper on the cockpit cushion.
For some unknown reason Gerry tested the deck light at some point in the next couple of days, it didn't work so he needed to go up the mast yet again to find out why, we are getting to the point where the climbing and winching up the mast is a regular daily exercise, anyway he came back down with the light in hand, it was completely corroded through at the back, no wonder it didn't work!
- Fine mess you got me into Nicky. Gerry with his M.Jackson gloves stuuffing the battens in the mains'l.
- Putting the main sail back up.jpeg (10.04 KiB) Viewed 6817 times
Our main fixing jobs were well in hand by now and we could concentrate on doing the tidying up and getting ready for the final passage, read a whole lot of cleaning and clearing out of rubbish plus topping up of oils, food and changing out of filters.
Our first point to check was the local marina store (it's really a glorified fishing sport shop with a couple of bits thrown in for good measure, not a proper chandlery with anything that would be useful) as to be expected they didn't have a replacement light so it was back to Rev once more - if anyone knew where to get one it would be him. A day later and we had a perfect replacement light, and what is hopefully a last mast climb/winch to fit the new light in place and test it, once we established that it was working properly it was time to have a beer and pack the bosun's chair away for good.
- Leaking Hydraulic boom control panel.jpeg (10.02 KiB) Viewed 6817 times
We had now finished all of the repairs and maintenance stuff and were ready to leave Fiji, unfortunately the weather gods didn't agree and held us captive here for a further week. In many ways it was good as we finally got to do nothing and relax, the sad bit was that the country is still under quite restrictive rules due to Covid and most places remain shut or on limited opening and no gathering of more than 10 people, mask wearing is mandatory, temperature checks and contact tracing details recorded if you go into anywhere. So what did we do in the week we stayed? Big fat nothing, we didn't leave the port area at all, stocked up in the local mini mart, cooked up stuff on the boat for the onward trip, read our books , drank as much alcohol as we could manage and watched a couple of Netflix series. We would have loved to go inland and explore but there was nothing open and nowhere to go to so we missed out. Talking to some of the yachties on the dock who have spent a couple of season here, it would have been a great place to spend some time and explore but we were just in the right place at the wrong time.
Cutting a long story short, we took down the dodger so that the middle window could have a new zipper put in and we asked the canvas man to move the zippers on each side of the exit windows as we hadn't been able to do them up since having the dodger replaced in Cartagena.
Once the sails had gone the sail maker said he would send the canvas worker to have a look at the Zipper work we needed doing.
- New zipper in seat cushion.jpeg (89.57 KiB) Viewed 6817 times
We had the canvas back within a day and a half but then the man had to take away the doors as he had completely replaced half of the zipper in the exit and needed to replace the opposite part in the door.
Well in the end we had exit doors that now close once more so all was good on the canvas front, oh and he replaced the broken zipper on the cockpit cushion.
- Cockpit cushion refitted.jpeg (79.56 KiB) Viewed 6817 times
For some unknown reason Gerry tested the deck light at some point in the next couple of days, it didn't work so he needed to go up the mast yet again to find out why, we are getting to the point where the climbing and winching up the mast is a regular daily exercise, anyway he came back down with the light in hand, it was completely corroded through at the back, no wonder it didn't work!
- Old and New deck lights.jpeg (74 KiB) Viewed 6817 times
Last edited by David Fox on Sun Oct 03, 2021 9:31 pm, edited 15 times in total.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:57 pm
Hoisting the Blue Peter
So finally the weather window has begun to open up and there are at least 4 boats looking to make their way to Brisbane as of today. We are not fans of a flotilla but these other guys want to be in touch so we have all set off together after being cleared out by customs and immigration early this morning. We refuelled yesterday to make sure that we have full fuel tanks as we are bound to find the wind is on our nose all the way and we have to motor sail, we took
145 gallons to top off the tanks, hopefully it is nice clean fuel and won't cause us any of the problems we had with the fuel from Panama!
We set off at 10am and have just this moment cleared the end of the reef, some 14 miles from the marina so we are now out in the open water, the wind is of course on our nose and we are motor sailing doing a paltry 4 knots at present. The other guys, 2 catamarans and a wind vained monohull are all travelling at about the same speed as us, there will be a bit of a diversity of course as there are 3 different ideas about which way it is best to traverse through New Caledonia but I'm sure we will all be arriving in Brisbane around the same sort of time.
My final bit of good news is that Sherard, (the mad single hander who lost his auto pilot on route but continued on to Australia from Tahiti without stopping) has been in contact and is safely ensconced in hotel quarantine for 14 days after spending 26 days alone at sea, he is fully vaccinated and had a negative PCR test the day of leaving Tahiti please can anyone enlighten us as to the particular science that the health department is following here because we just can't see it. Thank you to everyone who kept him in their thoughts, vibes and prayers for a safe arrival - it worked!
So finally the weather window has begun to open up and there are at least 4 boats looking to make their way to Brisbane as of today. We are not fans of a flotilla but these other guys want to be in touch so we have all set off together after being cleared out by customs and immigration early this morning. We refuelled yesterday to make sure that we have full fuel tanks as we are bound to find the wind is on our nose all the way and we have to motor sail, we took
145 gallons to top off the tanks, hopefully it is nice clean fuel and won't cause us any of the problems we had with the fuel from Panama!
We set off at 10am and have just this moment cleared the end of the reef, some 14 miles from the marina so we are now out in the open water, the wind is of course on our nose and we are motor sailing doing a paltry 4 knots at present. The other guys, 2 catamarans and a wind vained monohull are all travelling at about the same speed as us, there will be a bit of a diversity of course as there are 3 different ideas about which way it is best to traverse through New Caledonia but I'm sure we will all be arriving in Brisbane around the same sort of time.
My final bit of good news is that Sherard, (the mad single hander who lost his auto pilot on route but continued on to Australia from Tahiti without stopping) has been in contact and is safely ensconced in hotel quarantine for 14 days after spending 26 days alone at sea, he is fully vaccinated and had a negative PCR test the day of leaving Tahiti please can anyone enlighten us as to the particular science that the health department is following here because we just can't see it. Thank you to everyone who kept him in their thoughts, vibes and prayers for a safe arrival - it worked!
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Wed Oct 06, 2021 9:25 pm
First day done and dusted
03 October 2021
18 11.767'S:175 05.347'E,
At sea on passage Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Overcast, wind 12 knots, waves 2.8 meters.
Life on the ocean wave again, but the 'Pay Off' passage, after a little loitering in Brisbane and a short coasting trip.
From our roving reporter Nicky Cooper
So after my massive blog yesterday I think todays will be short and sweet, well short anyway.
We motor sailed out to the open water and then, after deciding where the wind was coming from, we turned off the engine to give ourselves a bit of peace and quiet. The wind was, as I'm sure you will already have guessed , on the nose so it wasn't so much sailing as bashing our way through the water and constant fiddling with sails to keep them full. Slowly the wind began to drift backwards and gave us a better point of sail for a while, of course that didn't last as it eventually got to the point of being directly behind us and swinging from one side to the other. The main sail started to bang and crash so it was time to put the preventer on, the only question arising from that was which side to put it out on. We started out putting it on the starboard side, of course the wind then veered towards that side and we had to swap it over to Port, and repeat, and repeat and repeat! It gets very old very quickly when you have to keep adjusting everything and even worse when it started to rain just as it was getting dark.
Gerry went below to dish up dinner, I was feeling far to nauseated to even contemplate going below at this point, but as soon as he was up to his elbows in dishing up food the wind dropped away to nothing and I had to start the mechanical wind up.
We ate dinner to the mellow tones of a throbbing engine whilst being rocked violently from side to side as the swell was coming at us beam on at about 2.8 meters and with a short sharp interval. How we managed to get the food into our mouths remains a mystery but we managed. Oh I almost forgot to mention the other accompaniment, as we are travelling with a flotilla of 3 other boats and everyone has AIS the proximity alarms constantly went off, that gets old very quickly too and there is no way we can stop the alarms apart from being over 2 miles away from the closest boat - it's just another reason not to travel in a flotilla!
As darkness descended the rain thankfully stopped, we got a bit more wind and were able to switch the engine off. I think that I mentioned yesterday that two of the boats are going around the very top of New Caledonia, one is taking a path through the reef where it hasn't been surveyed but he thinks the satellite image shows enough depth (we think he's mad) and we are going through the shipping channel which is the most southerly of the choices, because we have chosen different paths we gradually drifted away from the two boats going the top end route and at the start of the evening the mad man was way out in front of us but heading on a similar course to us for the most part.
It was pitch black for most of the night but we could just make out the mast head light on the boat going our way. As the night wore on the wind got stronger and Gerry put the first reef in the main to steady us up in an attempt to let us get some sleep, not that either of us did very well on that aspect and we need to try and catch up at some time today.
We made at least 5.5 knots all night under sail and reached the dizzy heights of 8 knots at times, unfortunately the swell made it extremely uncomfortable and difficult to keep our balance so I'm sure my bruise collection is growing once more! Gradually we caught up with the boat going our way (it's a catamaran and he ran with just 2 headsails all night, one on each side) and even overtook him until the sun rose this morning and he is now just slightly ahead of us at the moment. As soon as the sun was up this morning Gerry wanted to put our spinnaker pole out to enable us to goose wing as the wind has decided that for the moment it is going to remain aft of the boat. Much moaning and groaning accompanied the putting up of the poll but we got there and are currently wing and winging it at around 5.6 knots.
The swell remains horrible for the moment but both the wind and the swell are supposed to die away later today and then we will be back to motor sailing. We have totally lost sight of the two other boats, it will be interesting to hear how they fared when we all meet up in Brisbane.
So in our first 24 hours we managed to cover 136NM which wasn't bad going considering that 14 of those were getting out to the open water. We ran the engine for a total of 7 hours, in fuel economy mode!
So no fish, no stars and just a sliver of moon which didn't show up until 5 am, maybe today will be a better day once the swell dies down, I certainly hope so as I hate feeling this nauseated.
03 October 2021
18 11.767'S:175 05.347'E,
At sea on passage Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Overcast, wind 12 knots, waves 2.8 meters.
Life on the ocean wave again, but the 'Pay Off' passage, after a little loitering in Brisbane and a short coasting trip.
From our roving reporter Nicky Cooper
So after my massive blog yesterday I think todays will be short and sweet, well short anyway.
We motor sailed out to the open water and then, after deciding where the wind was coming from, we turned off the engine to give ourselves a bit of peace and quiet. The wind was, as I'm sure you will already have guessed , on the nose so it wasn't so much sailing as bashing our way through the water and constant fiddling with sails to keep them full. Slowly the wind began to drift backwards and gave us a better point of sail for a while, of course that didn't last as it eventually got to the point of being directly behind us and swinging from one side to the other. The main sail started to bang and crash so it was time to put the preventer on, the only question arising from that was which side to put it out on. We started out putting it on the starboard side, of course the wind then veered towards that side and we had to swap it over to Port, and repeat, and repeat and repeat! It gets very old very quickly when you have to keep adjusting everything and even worse when it started to rain just as it was getting dark.
Gerry went below to dish up dinner, I was feeling far to nauseated to even contemplate going below at this point, but as soon as he was up to his elbows in dishing up food the wind dropped away to nothing and I had to start the mechanical wind up.
We ate dinner to the mellow tones of a throbbing engine whilst being rocked violently from side to side as the swell was coming at us beam on at about 2.8 meters and with a short sharp interval. How we managed to get the food into our mouths remains a mystery but we managed. Oh I almost forgot to mention the other accompaniment, as we are travelling with a flotilla of 3 other boats and everyone has AIS the proximity alarms constantly went off, that gets old very quickly too and there is no way we can stop the alarms apart from being over 2 miles away from the closest boat - it's just another reason not to travel in a flotilla!
- 3518Sailing into the sun set.jpeg (9.54 KiB) Viewed 6771 times
As darkness descended the rain thankfully stopped, we got a bit more wind and were able to switch the engine off. I think that I mentioned yesterday that two of the boats are going around the very top of New Caledonia, one is taking a path through the reef where it hasn't been surveyed but he thinks the satellite image shows enough depth (we think he's mad) and we are going through the shipping channel which is the most southerly of the choices, because we have chosen different paths we gradually drifted away from the two boats going the top end route and at the start of the evening the mad man was way out in front of us but heading on a similar course to us for the most part.
It was pitch black for most of the night but we could just make out the mast head light on the boat going our way. As the night wore on the wind got stronger and Gerry put the first reef in the main to steady us up in an attempt to let us get some sleep, not that either of us did very well on that aspect and we need to try and catch up at some time today.
We made at least 5.5 knots all night under sail and reached the dizzy heights of 8 knots at times, unfortunately the swell made it extremely uncomfortable and difficult to keep our balance so I'm sure my bruise collection is growing once more! Gradually we caught up with the boat going our way (it's a catamaran and he ran with just 2 headsails all night, one on each side) and even overtook him until the sun rose this morning and he is now just slightly ahead of us at the moment. As soon as the sun was up this morning Gerry wanted to put our spinnaker pole out to enable us to goose wing as the wind has decided that for the moment it is going to remain aft of the boat. Much moaning and groaning accompanied the putting up of the poll but we got there and are currently wing and winging it at around 5.6 knots.
- 3519Sails at sun set.jpeg (7.64 KiB) Viewed 6771 times
The swell remains horrible for the moment but both the wind and the swell are supposed to die away later today and then we will be back to motor sailing. We have totally lost sight of the two other boats, it will be interesting to hear how they fared when we all meet up in Brisbane.
So in our first 24 hours we managed to cover 136NM which wasn't bad going considering that 14 of those were getting out to the open water. We ran the engine for a total of 7 hours, in fuel economy mode!
So no fish, no stars and just a sliver of moon which didn't show up until 5 am, maybe today will be a better day once the swell dies down, I certainly hope so as I hate feeling this nauseated.
Last edited by David Fox on Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Wed Oct 06, 2021 9:55 pm
A miserable wet night
04 October 2021
18 37.463'S:173 06.679'E,
At sea on passage Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Rainy, wind 5- 15 knots, waves 2.5 metres
Well that was a day and night to forget in a hurry. During the daytime we had a very rolly ride due to the continuing swell hitting us beam on whilst the wind played at guess where we are coming from next! As the day wore on it became obvious that the wind was going to be coming at us from our stern and it didn't matter which side we had the sails out on it would be coming from the wrong side to be able to make good use of. We struggled to keep sailing as much as we could, Gerry fiddled and tweaked the sails in order to keep us moving along but even he couldn't keep our speed above 4 knots so we resorted to using the mechanical wind for the best part of 15 hours. Whilst we only run the engine at low revs to preserve our fuel it gives us just enough momentum to be able to maintain our steerage and direction.
When the wind did pick up the engine got turned off but it was only for short periods of time and then we were back to almost wallowing along so the engine went back on.
As night approached so did the cloud cover and along with it came the rain and lightning. For the most part of the night we were motor sailing along in the pitch black, there was no moon or stars to light the way, the rain pelted down at all angles and despite having a full cockpit enclosure we had rain coming in and soaking all but one of the seats. I think we really need to apply another coat of waterproofing to the canvas. Anyway it was unpleasant and wet everywhere making it a bit cold and added to that we had lightening which is my least favourite thing.
I guess it scares me having a very large metal stick poking skywards out of the middle of the boat - it might as well have a sign saying "hit me" on it! The good news is that it didn't and as dawn broke the lightening vanished. Running the engine overnight was all well and good but at one point it gave a small hiccough and change in tone which both Gerry and I noticed straight away, the engine went off and Gerry set about changing the fuel filter whilst I tried to keep us steady and more or less on course - not an easy task when the wind had dropped away to nothing and we had no forward motion.
It's a good job that he is well practised at changing the filters and it was only a few minutes before we could turn the engine back on and get ourselves back on track. The filter wasn't particularly dirty and there were no obvious bits of debris so we are scratching our heads as to what caused the hiccough in the first place. Other than that the night passed without further incident, we tried to get as much sleep as we could, not the easiest as we were still rolling around like a marble in a cardboard box, I think we both have some sleep catching up to do today again.
We were in sight of one of the other boats that we started out with all night and have spoken to them this morning, they have decided that the weather has now changed enough for the passage south of New Caledonia to be a viable option and they are heading that way.
Gerry checked with predict wind and sure enough the model looks favourable for a southerly passage so we have altered our course as well and are now heading to the southern part New Caledonia, of course the weather could change again and make us look like idiots but we can only take a best guess as to how it will pan out so fingers crossed. Either way the wind is going to be very light and the swell is going to be dropping away to less than a meter for the next 2-3 days, I see a whole lot of motor sailing in our future!
With the slight change of course we have had to switch the main over to the other side and also the spinnaker pole, this was done straight after we had finished breakfast, it's never my favourite thing but doing it right on top of eating was the pits. We are currently sailing along with a full main and the Yankee poled out making 6.8 knots - not that that will last we think we will be lucky to average 5 knots as the wind and swell drops. We aren't doing anywhere near a decent trolling speed so the fishing gear has remained firmly tucked away and out of sight, beside which we have enough food prepared to see us through to Brisbane so we really don't need to catch anything extra, it would just be a waste. In the 24 hours we managed to cover 117NM, not a great total but it is that much closer to home so we can't complain.
04 October 2021
18 37.463'S:173 06.679'E,
At sea on passage Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Rainy, wind 5- 15 knots, waves 2.5 metres
Well that was a day and night to forget in a hurry. During the daytime we had a very rolly ride due to the continuing swell hitting us beam on whilst the wind played at guess where we are coming from next! As the day wore on it became obvious that the wind was going to be coming at us from our stern and it didn't matter which side we had the sails out on it would be coming from the wrong side to be able to make good use of. We struggled to keep sailing as much as we could, Gerry fiddled and tweaked the sails in order to keep us moving along but even he couldn't keep our speed above 4 knots so we resorted to using the mechanical wind for the best part of 15 hours. Whilst we only run the engine at low revs to preserve our fuel it gives us just enough momentum to be able to maintain our steerage and direction.
When the wind did pick up the engine got turned off but it was only for short periods of time and then we were back to almost wallowing along so the engine went back on.
As night approached so did the cloud cover and along with it came the rain and lightning. For the most part of the night we were motor sailing along in the pitch black, there was no moon or stars to light the way, the rain pelted down at all angles and despite having a full cockpit enclosure we had rain coming in and soaking all but one of the seats. I think we really need to apply another coat of waterproofing to the canvas. Anyway it was unpleasant and wet everywhere making it a bit cold and added to that we had lightening which is my least favourite thing.
I guess it scares me having a very large metal stick poking skywards out of the middle of the boat - it might as well have a sign saying "hit me" on it! The good news is that it didn't and as dawn broke the lightening vanished. Running the engine overnight was all well and good but at one point it gave a small hiccough and change in tone which both Gerry and I noticed straight away, the engine went off and Gerry set about changing the fuel filter whilst I tried to keep us steady and more or less on course - not an easy task when the wind had dropped away to nothing and we had no forward motion.
It's a good job that he is well practised at changing the filters and it was only a few minutes before we could turn the engine back on and get ourselves back on track. The filter wasn't particularly dirty and there were no obvious bits of debris so we are scratching our heads as to what caused the hiccough in the first place. Other than that the night passed without further incident, we tried to get as much sleep as we could, not the easiest as we were still rolling around like a marble in a cardboard box, I think we both have some sleep catching up to do today again.
We were in sight of one of the other boats that we started out with all night and have spoken to them this morning, they have decided that the weather has now changed enough for the passage south of New Caledonia to be a viable option and they are heading that way.
Gerry checked with predict wind and sure enough the model looks favourable for a southerly passage so we have altered our course as well and are now heading to the southern part New Caledonia, of course the weather could change again and make us look like idiots but we can only take a best guess as to how it will pan out so fingers crossed. Either way the wind is going to be very light and the swell is going to be dropping away to less than a meter for the next 2-3 days, I see a whole lot of motor sailing in our future!
With the slight change of course we have had to switch the main over to the other side and also the spinnaker pole, this was done straight after we had finished breakfast, it's never my favourite thing but doing it right on top of eating was the pits. We are currently sailing along with a full main and the Yankee poled out making 6.8 knots - not that that will last we think we will be lucky to average 5 knots as the wind and swell drops. We aren't doing anywhere near a decent trolling speed so the fishing gear has remained firmly tucked away and out of sight, beside which we have enough food prepared to see us through to Brisbane so we really don't need to catch anything extra, it would just be a waste. In the 24 hours we managed to cover 117NM, not a great total but it is that much closer to home so we can't complain.
Last edited by David Fox on Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:34 am
Alone again, no signs of life at sea
05 October 2021
19 49.684'S:171 35.302'E,
At sea on passage Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Sunny, wind 5- 10 knots, waves 1.5 meters
We spent another somewhat uneventful day in the last 24 hours. The sun was out making it a much more pleasant day than yesterday, the down side is that the wind is dropping and will continue to do so over the next 3 days. The swell is slowly following and began to drop away making it a less rolly ride and far easier to deal with plus we got some catch up sleep! The other boat that is heading in the same direction as us rocketed past us during the night and disappeared from sight over the horizon, with two engines they motor much faster than we can. We tried to keep motor sailing as much as possible but with the wind at less than 5 knots we were hard pushed to maintain a speed of 4.5 knots with the occasional burst of up to 6 knots. At the end of the 24 hours we only managed to cover 113 NM and we ran the engine for 19 hours. We expect it will be much the same for the next couple of days unless the wind surprises us and arrives early.
Our night was as black as the ace of spades until about half way through when the sky lightened somewhat with thousands of stars coming out to play, still no moon to speak of though. Out on the horizon there was continuing lightning for most of the night but happily it was nowhere near to us and we had no rain which was really good after the drenching we got the previous night.
Dawn today was a little overcast but as soon as the sun rose and burnt off the cloud cover it has turned into a beautiful warm, sunny day. The swell has died away to under 1 meter and the sun reflecting on the water has turned it a fabulous shade of inky blue with sparkly highlights bouncing off of the little waves. All around us there is nothing, once more it's just us and an empty ocean as far as the eye and radar can see. We haven't had any squid or flying fish land on the deck to date, we've seen no dolphins or whales and just an occasional bird flying past, which makes for very boring watching.
I've even done the few bits of laundry this morning and hung it out on the life lines in the hope of giving us a bit more sail area that the wind can fill to push us along a bit quicker! So that's it for today, don't expect much else in the way of excitement for the next couple of days because we aren't, just a bit more wind would be good to push us along a bit quicker but at least we are still moving forward albeit slowly.
Mr Toad's wild ride
06 October 2021
21 00.046'S:169 58.439'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Squally, wind 5 - 22 knots, waves 1.5 - 3 meters
The unexpected happened when we were least expecting it, we got wind! But to back track the day light hours of yesterday passed in a whole lot of nothingness, the wind was noticeably absent for the most part and we motor sailed when we could and just motored when we couldn't keep the sails from flapping uselessly. The swell had died away and we were on glassy, mirror like water with just and occasional lift. The sky was a brilliant blue without a single cloud to cast a shadow. We tried our best to keep our speed at about 5 knots but fell short of this a lot of the time as Gerry just didn't want to push the engine too hard, he was happy as long as we could keep above 4 knots. We saw nothing on or in the water for the entire day.
On the plus side it made cooking some brownies and a fish pie easy - we ate like kings last night. Having consulted the predict wind app. Gerry decided that we needed to have the main out to starboard for the up-coming wind which was supposed to be making an appearance and would be mostly 15 knots on the nose with a slight movement to Port a little later.
Then a little later on Gerry thought we might as well take the spinnaker pole down and stash it away as he couldn't see us needing it if the wind was as predicted. It went away fairly easily as there was little to no boat motion at the time, as it turned out it was a good move to take it down at this point, not that we knew it at the time. Then came the night, and along with it the sky clouded over at sun set. There was a sun but we never saw it actually set as it disappeared behind a band of cloud that just suddenly appeared on the horizon and almost surrounded the entire boat. As we headed closer to the cloud the sky was getting its night time apparel on and had turned pitch black, it was hard to distinguish the normal sky from the cloud cover. It began to look like we were in for another session of rain so the entire enclose was closed up in preparation, but it failed to eventuate. We took turns in going below to try and grab some sleep and in between we played at putting out the staysail and taking it back in in an attempt to move us along a bit faster, with no great success I might add we were still only managing to do 4.5knots with the engine running and the sails flopping and flapping.
Gerry had gone for his turn at sleeping and I was on watch when at around 1am the wind suddenly went from 7 knots on the nose to 18 knots, without any preamble. This sounds good I hear you thinking, they must have picked up speed and been rocketing along, quite the opposite happened though, our speed dropped off to 3 knots and we began rocking horse motion as the wind was still directly on the nose. After a few minutes the wind began to move slightly to port, I fiddled with the main ( this being the only sail we had up at the time) to see if I could get us moving along a bit faster, we should have been doing more than 3 knots in 18 knots of wind but my fiddling did nothing to improve our speed and the wind was beginning to gust up to 20 knots so I reluctantly called Gerry out of his pit to see what we could do to improve our lot.
He was astounded that we were going so slowly and thought that putting the staysail out might help, it really didn't. I got the Spanish inquisition about how and when this squall had appeared, what speed we had been doing before and what I had tried as even Gerry's fiddling was having minimal effect, we were having difficulty keeping the speed at 3.5 - 4 knots. That was the end of the sleeping for the night. It took at least another hour for the wind to come around to 30 degrees off the nose and we were able then to pick up a bit more forward motion, the swell was on the rise at the same time and the wind was now gusting at 22 knots making it an uncomfortable pitching motion. We tried to run without the engine given that the wind speed had picked up so much but this wasn't a viable option due to the inconsistency of the wind direction so the engine was left running and we settled into a sort of pattern at 4.5 knots but bashing our way through the waves which has continued right through to now. we have had waves coming over the gun whales at times and "caught" a couple of flying fish on the deck which got consigned back to the deep once day broke.
At dawn there was still dark cloud cover on 3 sides of us but as the sun rose it began to burn off and we are now under a clear blue cloudless sky. The wind has remained at 30 degrees so we are pinching our way forward, trying to remain on track. The forecast of 17 knots is actually more like 21knots at the moment, it is supposed to come further round and on to the beam later today - can't wait for that to happen as we should be getting a faster and more comfortable ride at that point! So I'm going to leave this at this point as I'm finding it difficult to hit the correct keys with all the bouncing around we are doing.
05 October 2021
19 49.684'S:171 35.302'E,
At sea on passage Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Sunny, wind 5- 10 knots, waves 1.5 meters
We spent another somewhat uneventful day in the last 24 hours. The sun was out making it a much more pleasant day than yesterday, the down side is that the wind is dropping and will continue to do so over the next 3 days. The swell is slowly following and began to drop away making it a less rolly ride and far easier to deal with plus we got some catch up sleep! The other boat that is heading in the same direction as us rocketed past us during the night and disappeared from sight over the horizon, with two engines they motor much faster than we can. We tried to keep motor sailing as much as possible but with the wind at less than 5 knots we were hard pushed to maintain a speed of 4.5 knots with the occasional burst of up to 6 knots. At the end of the 24 hours we only managed to cover 113 NM and we ran the engine for 19 hours. We expect it will be much the same for the next couple of days unless the wind surprises us and arrives early.
Our night was as black as the ace of spades until about half way through when the sky lightened somewhat with thousands of stars coming out to play, still no moon to speak of though. Out on the horizon there was continuing lightning for most of the night but happily it was nowhere near to us and we had no rain which was really good after the drenching we got the previous night.
Dawn today was a little overcast but as soon as the sun rose and burnt off the cloud cover it has turned into a beautiful warm, sunny day. The swell has died away to under 1 meter and the sun reflecting on the water has turned it a fabulous shade of inky blue with sparkly highlights bouncing off of the little waves. All around us there is nothing, once more it's just us and an empty ocean as far as the eye and radar can see. We haven't had any squid or flying fish land on the deck to date, we've seen no dolphins or whales and just an occasional bird flying past, which makes for very boring watching.
I've even done the few bits of laundry this morning and hung it out on the life lines in the hope of giving us a bit more sail area that the wind can fill to push us along a bit quicker! So that's it for today, don't expect much else in the way of excitement for the next couple of days because we aren't, just a bit more wind would be good to push us along a bit quicker but at least we are still moving forward albeit slowly.
Mr Toad's wild ride
06 October 2021
21 00.046'S:169 58.439'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: Squally, wind 5 - 22 knots, waves 1.5 - 3 meters
The unexpected happened when we were least expecting it, we got wind! But to back track the day light hours of yesterday passed in a whole lot of nothingness, the wind was noticeably absent for the most part and we motor sailed when we could and just motored when we couldn't keep the sails from flapping uselessly. The swell had died away and we were on glassy, mirror like water with just and occasional lift. The sky was a brilliant blue without a single cloud to cast a shadow. We tried our best to keep our speed at about 5 knots but fell short of this a lot of the time as Gerry just didn't want to push the engine too hard, he was happy as long as we could keep above 4 knots. We saw nothing on or in the water for the entire day.
On the plus side it made cooking some brownies and a fish pie easy - we ate like kings last night. Having consulted the predict wind app. Gerry decided that we needed to have the main out to starboard for the up-coming wind which was supposed to be making an appearance and would be mostly 15 knots on the nose with a slight movement to Port a little later.
Then a little later on Gerry thought we might as well take the spinnaker pole down and stash it away as he couldn't see us needing it if the wind was as predicted. It went away fairly easily as there was little to no boat motion at the time, as it turned out it was a good move to take it down at this point, not that we knew it at the time. Then came the night, and along with it the sky clouded over at sun set. There was a sun but we never saw it actually set as it disappeared behind a band of cloud that just suddenly appeared on the horizon and almost surrounded the entire boat. As we headed closer to the cloud the sky was getting its night time apparel on and had turned pitch black, it was hard to distinguish the normal sky from the cloud cover. It began to look like we were in for another session of rain so the entire enclose was closed up in preparation, but it failed to eventuate. We took turns in going below to try and grab some sleep and in between we played at putting out the staysail and taking it back in in an attempt to move us along a bit faster, with no great success I might add we were still only managing to do 4.5knots with the engine running and the sails flopping and flapping.
Gerry had gone for his turn at sleeping and I was on watch when at around 1am the wind suddenly went from 7 knots on the nose to 18 knots, without any preamble. This sounds good I hear you thinking, they must have picked up speed and been rocketing along, quite the opposite happened though, our speed dropped off to 3 knots and we began rocking horse motion as the wind was still directly on the nose. After a few minutes the wind began to move slightly to port, I fiddled with the main ( this being the only sail we had up at the time) to see if I could get us moving along a bit faster, we should have been doing more than 3 knots in 18 knots of wind but my fiddling did nothing to improve our speed and the wind was beginning to gust up to 20 knots so I reluctantly called Gerry out of his pit to see what we could do to improve our lot.
He was astounded that we were going so slowly and thought that putting the staysail out might help, it really didn't. I got the Spanish inquisition about how and when this squall had appeared, what speed we had been doing before and what I had tried as even Gerry's fiddling was having minimal effect, we were having difficulty keeping the speed at 3.5 - 4 knots. That was the end of the sleeping for the night. It took at least another hour for the wind to come around to 30 degrees off the nose and we were able then to pick up a bit more forward motion, the swell was on the rise at the same time and the wind was now gusting at 22 knots making it an uncomfortable pitching motion. We tried to run without the engine given that the wind speed had picked up so much but this wasn't a viable option due to the inconsistency of the wind direction so the engine was left running and we settled into a sort of pattern at 4.5 knots but bashing our way through the waves which has continued right through to now. we have had waves coming over the gun whales at times and "caught" a couple of flying fish on the deck which got consigned back to the deep once day broke.
At dawn there was still dark cloud cover on 3 sides of us but as the sun rose it began to burn off and we are now under a clear blue cloudless sky. The wind has remained at 30 degrees so we are pinching our way forward, trying to remain on track. The forecast of 17 knots is actually more like 21knots at the moment, it is supposed to come further round and on to the beam later today - can't wait for that to happen as we should be getting a faster and more comfortable ride at that point! So I'm going to leave this at this point as I'm finding it difficult to hit the correct keys with all the bouncing around we are doing.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:16 pm
The wild ride continues
07 October 2021
22 12.270'S:168 20.490'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: squally, wind 5 - 26 knots, waves 1.5 - 3 meters
I thought that yesterday was a wild ride but the last 24 hours beat it by a margin. During the daylight hours we bashed our way through rough seas with very gusty winds reaching 26 knots coming mostly from on the nose, is there any other direction one wonders! We were shipping water over the bow with every bounce and the gun'lls were constantly awash. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the swell was only coming from one direction but we were stuck between a very confused sea coming at us from two totally opposed directions and the waves managed to hit us in sequence sending us flying in one direction then being tossed back the other way before we had time to getting our footings from the first roll. It was certainly a day to spend sitting in the cockpit and holding on for grim death. Unfortunately the boat speed wasn't correspondingly good, as the wind was on the nose we were slow moving and lucky if we were making 4 knots, a lot less at times!
To this end we had no option but to run the engine to keep up a speed which kept us moving forward, any less than 4 knots and we would loose steerage and begin wallowing all over the place. The wind gusts got to the point of being too frequent to be classed as just an occasional gust and we put the second reef in the main, more to stop it from blowing out than to stop it from pushing us along. this, of course, wasn't the weather that was predicted for today, we were meant to be getting 17 knots on the beam which would have been quite pleasant and would have afforded us a decent sail, no one was surprised!
Late in the afternoon there was a small change in wind direction, it was heading towards the beam but oh so slowly. The sea swell lagged a bit behind the wind change so we still rocked and pitched like a fairground carousel. Gerry thankfully doesn't get too affected by motion sickness and dealt with throwing together all of the meals for the day, by that I mean grabbing them out of the freezer and heating them up - I had precooked enough meals to get us all the way to Brisbane without me having to chop a single vegetable or piece of meat, thank goodness.
Moving about anywhere on the boat was a bruise collector's nightmare, there are things that jump out at you at the most unexpected of moments and in places that you would never dream of being so sharp and vindictive, the collection is growing.
So the sun set was obliterated by a sudden cloud line which appeared on the horizon just in time to prevent us witnessing the (mythical) green flash. This cloud line dispersed very quickly and we were left with a totally clear sky filled with thousands of twinkling stars, for the first time this trip we were both damn cold and resorted to wearing hoodies and closing up the cockpit to retain whatever heat there was. The wind began to die away and to make its way further towards the beam, it would take most of the night to finally get there.
Gradually the swell joined in and thankfully began to drop away as well making the ride so much smoother that we could manage to get some sleep in between our watches. The sun rose and we thought we were in for a nice sunny day but the sky has gradually filled with cloud and we now have just a few patches of blue peeping between the clouds. The wind has finally reached its prediction and we have about 17 knots of wind on the beam with the swell now at about 1.8 meters. Currently we have the Yankee and the stay sail out with the main no longer reefed and we are sailing along, engine free, at 7.2 knots. We managed to cover 118 NM (this seems to be the average every day at the moment in these conditions) but to get there we ran the engine for 21 hours.
We hear on a daily basis from the other 3 boats that we started out with, everyone is having similar experiences of wind and swell even though we are completely out of sight and radio range of each other, it will be interesting to hear on arrival of each other's trip experience and compare bruises. Gerry did a walk about round the interior of the boat this morning and was distressed to find that we have slipped a heap of water inside the boat via the Dorades, these have now been turned to face away from the bow - a bit late as the horse has already bolted and we have a lot of mopping up and drying out of stuff to do.
07 October 2021
22 12.270'S:168 20.490'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: squally, wind 5 - 26 knots, waves 1.5 - 3 meters
I thought that yesterday was a wild ride but the last 24 hours beat it by a margin. During the daylight hours we bashed our way through rough seas with very gusty winds reaching 26 knots coming mostly from on the nose, is there any other direction one wonders! We were shipping water over the bow with every bounce and the gun'lls were constantly awash. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the swell was only coming from one direction but we were stuck between a very confused sea coming at us from two totally opposed directions and the waves managed to hit us in sequence sending us flying in one direction then being tossed back the other way before we had time to getting our footings from the first roll. It was certainly a day to spend sitting in the cockpit and holding on for grim death. Unfortunately the boat speed wasn't correspondingly good, as the wind was on the nose we were slow moving and lucky if we were making 4 knots, a lot less at times!
To this end we had no option but to run the engine to keep up a speed which kept us moving forward, any less than 4 knots and we would loose steerage and begin wallowing all over the place. The wind gusts got to the point of being too frequent to be classed as just an occasional gust and we put the second reef in the main, more to stop it from blowing out than to stop it from pushing us along. this, of course, wasn't the weather that was predicted for today, we were meant to be getting 17 knots on the beam which would have been quite pleasant and would have afforded us a decent sail, no one was surprised!
Late in the afternoon there was a small change in wind direction, it was heading towards the beam but oh so slowly. The sea swell lagged a bit behind the wind change so we still rocked and pitched like a fairground carousel. Gerry thankfully doesn't get too affected by motion sickness and dealt with throwing together all of the meals for the day, by that I mean grabbing them out of the freezer and heating them up - I had precooked enough meals to get us all the way to Brisbane without me having to chop a single vegetable or piece of meat, thank goodness.
Moving about anywhere on the boat was a bruise collector's nightmare, there are things that jump out at you at the most unexpected of moments and in places that you would never dream of being so sharp and vindictive, the collection is growing.
So the sun set was obliterated by a sudden cloud line which appeared on the horizon just in time to prevent us witnessing the (mythical) green flash. This cloud line dispersed very quickly and we were left with a totally clear sky filled with thousands of twinkling stars, for the first time this trip we were both damn cold and resorted to wearing hoodies and closing up the cockpit to retain whatever heat there was. The wind began to die away and to make its way further towards the beam, it would take most of the night to finally get there.
Gradually the swell joined in and thankfully began to drop away as well making the ride so much smoother that we could manage to get some sleep in between our watches. The sun rose and we thought we were in for a nice sunny day but the sky has gradually filled with cloud and we now have just a few patches of blue peeping between the clouds. The wind has finally reached its prediction and we have about 17 knots of wind on the beam with the swell now at about 1.8 meters. Currently we have the Yankee and the stay sail out with the main no longer reefed and we are sailing along, engine free, at 7.2 knots. We managed to cover 118 NM (this seems to be the average every day at the moment in these conditions) but to get there we ran the engine for 21 hours.
We hear on a daily basis from the other 3 boats that we started out with, everyone is having similar experiences of wind and swell even though we are completely out of sight and radio range of each other, it will be interesting to hear on arrival of each other's trip experience and compare bruises. Gerry did a walk about round the interior of the boat this morning and was distressed to find that we have slipped a heap of water inside the boat via the Dorades, these have now been turned to face away from the bow - a bit late as the horse has already bolted and we have a lot of mopping up and drying out of stuff to do.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:03 am
The final leg
08 October 2021
23 23.005'S:166 09.112'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: overcast, wind 5 -18 knots, waves 1- 2 meters
We finally settled into a sort of pattern that we could live with. The wind had clocked around and was now sitting around the beam, sometimes just ahead of it and sometimes just aft of it, but close enough that we could sail it, we still couldn't get much more than 5.5 knots of speed though but I guess given the actual wind speed was around 8 knots we weren't doing so badly.
The swell died away and made it a more comfortable ride for most of the day. We managed to catch a few naps during the day and read our books between mopping up the carnage from the water coming through the Dorade and into the forward cabin. We hadn't realised yesterday that every towel in the forward bathroom had gotten wet so we had a bit of a Chinese laundry thing happening in the cockpit today to try and dry out as much as possible so that things didn't mould and stink the place out. As we are still not making potable water (the new brushes on the water maker are still being run in and the water we produce isn't far enough below acceptable level to put into the tank) we were reluctant to "waste" water on rinsing out these towels, they will just need a good laundering once we reach Brisbane.
Our freezer is beginning to look a little empty, I did a quick calculation of how many meals we still have prepared and am quite happy to know that we have enough to see us all the way into Brisbane with possibly one meal left over. I am trying my hardest to orchestrate it so that we have next to nothing left for the bio security people to confiscate on our arrival but I'm sure there will be something that they take away which will annoy me, much like the 2 canned hams that got taken off of us in Fiji - I still can't get my head around what sort of bio hazard processed canned ham can possibly have, if anyone knows please enlighten me! *
We had quite a bit of discussion as to whether or not we should change course slightly and take the passage that goes through New Caledonia as the wind
at the time was pushing us more towards that way than our current course which would take us around the end of the island, in the end we managed to skim around the end as the wind had come around enough for us to get back on course.
The sun set was again a non- event with clouds sitting at the horizon as the sun disappeared from the sky. The stars came out but were soon engulfed in a cloak of grey clouds. We had the motor on and off depending on how much wind was blowing at any particular moment, in total we ran the engine for 11 hours which was an improvement on the previous days.
It was my turn to have a sleep and I had been just out of it, in a dead sleep, when Gerry called me back up into the cockpit, I tried not to be grumpy but it was hard plus the temperature was dropping much like it had last night leaving me shivering on top of the grumpiness. I only mention the grumpiness as Gerry never gets grumpy when I call him up from his sleep, mind you he is probably just grateful that I'm not destroying his boat at the time, plus he can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, anywhere, anytime, so he goes back to bed without any issue.**
The reason for the recall was that the wind had begun to veer to the stern
and we hadn't got the preventer out on the main so it was beginning to slap and crash with the changing direction. Gerry went out on deck to attach the preventer and I manned the lines from the cockpit, we soon had it in place and I was sent back to bed, could I get back to sleep? Not a chance, I had to make up for it next turn around.
I was thankful that Gerry was feeling too lazy to go out on deck in the pitch black of night and try to put the spinnaker pole back up a short lived reprieve. Yet again we both felt frozen to death during the course of the night and could be found wearing our hoodies in an effort to keep warm, it didn't work too well and certainly didn't stop my feet from being like ice blocks.
Dawn arrived and with it the sun which took it's time to heat up the interior of the cockpit. We needed a cooked breakfast to warm us up so it was a good job that the swell was down to negligible and we were riding along quite smoothly.
Unfortunately Gerry has a habit of wanting to "do stuff" straight after finishing eating, with no time to digest our breakfast he was getting prepared to put the spinnaker pole out, a job I have come to hate as we always end up niggling and giving sharp retorts to each other during the process. The winching leaves me with aching arms, an aggravated tennis elbow (note to self - must stop playing tennis) and due to the just finished breakfast, terrible indigestion. ***
Apart from feeling a bit hot and bothered it doesn't seem to effect Gerry. Anyway the pole is up and we now have the Yankee poled out on it with the main on the opposing side so we are goose winging for now. I've no doubt that at some stage we will be changing the pole over to the other side and gybing as the wind works its way around to the other side of the stern, something to look forward to - not!
For the moment though we are comfortably doing 6 knots, the engine is silent, the swell is of no great concern, the sun is shining, we can see no other signs of life on or in the water, we have just one more way point to reach and that is Brisbane! We managed to cover a massive 143 NM in the 24 hours which was a bit of a surprise considering how the wind messed about but we'll take it anyway. We have around 750 NM to go until we are at the marina so we are about half way there as of now but there is nothing between here and Brisbane so it will be a boring but hopefully a quick and uneventful last run.
* Baksheesh ! They were stealing the tinned hams, they worked on the principle that you didn't know the local laws, if you did make a scene they would give the boat a good rummage for anything else they fancied.
** Comes with being at sea and on the 'bells' and getting used to crashing at anytime.
*** A fry up will give you indegestion, you are tasting it all day.
08 October 2021
23 23.005'S:166 09.112'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: overcast, wind 5 -18 knots, waves 1- 2 meters
We finally settled into a sort of pattern that we could live with. The wind had clocked around and was now sitting around the beam, sometimes just ahead of it and sometimes just aft of it, but close enough that we could sail it, we still couldn't get much more than 5.5 knots of speed though but I guess given the actual wind speed was around 8 knots we weren't doing so badly.
The swell died away and made it a more comfortable ride for most of the day. We managed to catch a few naps during the day and read our books between mopping up the carnage from the water coming through the Dorade and into the forward cabin. We hadn't realised yesterday that every towel in the forward bathroom had gotten wet so we had a bit of a Chinese laundry thing happening in the cockpit today to try and dry out as much as possible so that things didn't mould and stink the place out. As we are still not making potable water (the new brushes on the water maker are still being run in and the water we produce isn't far enough below acceptable level to put into the tank) we were reluctant to "waste" water on rinsing out these towels, they will just need a good laundering once we reach Brisbane.
- 3514Sails at sun set.jpeg (6.2 KiB) Viewed 6757 times
Our freezer is beginning to look a little empty, I did a quick calculation of how many meals we still have prepared and am quite happy to know that we have enough to see us all the way into Brisbane with possibly one meal left over. I am trying my hardest to orchestrate it so that we have next to nothing left for the bio security people to confiscate on our arrival but I'm sure there will be something that they take away which will annoy me, much like the 2 canned hams that got taken off of us in Fiji - I still can't get my head around what sort of bio hazard processed canned ham can possibly have, if anyone knows please enlighten me! *
We had quite a bit of discussion as to whether or not we should change course slightly and take the passage that goes through New Caledonia as the wind
at the time was pushing us more towards that way than our current course which would take us around the end of the island, in the end we managed to skim around the end as the wind had come around enough for us to get back on course.
The sun set was again a non- event with clouds sitting at the horizon as the sun disappeared from the sky. The stars came out but were soon engulfed in a cloak of grey clouds. We had the motor on and off depending on how much wind was blowing at any particular moment, in total we ran the engine for 11 hours which was an improvement on the previous days.
It was my turn to have a sleep and I had been just out of it, in a dead sleep, when Gerry called me back up into the cockpit, I tried not to be grumpy but it was hard plus the temperature was dropping much like it had last night leaving me shivering on top of the grumpiness. I only mention the grumpiness as Gerry never gets grumpy when I call him up from his sleep, mind you he is probably just grateful that I'm not destroying his boat at the time, plus he can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, anywhere, anytime, so he goes back to bed without any issue.**
The reason for the recall was that the wind had begun to veer to the stern
and we hadn't got the preventer out on the main so it was beginning to slap and crash with the changing direction. Gerry went out on deck to attach the preventer and I manned the lines from the cockpit, we soon had it in place and I was sent back to bed, could I get back to sleep? Not a chance, I had to make up for it next turn around.
I was thankful that Gerry was feeling too lazy to go out on deck in the pitch black of night and try to put the spinnaker pole back up a short lived reprieve. Yet again we both felt frozen to death during the course of the night and could be found wearing our hoodies in an effort to keep warm, it didn't work too well and certainly didn't stop my feet from being like ice blocks.
Dawn arrived and with it the sun which took it's time to heat up the interior of the cockpit. We needed a cooked breakfast to warm us up so it was a good job that the swell was down to negligible and we were riding along quite smoothly.
Unfortunately Gerry has a habit of wanting to "do stuff" straight after finishing eating, with no time to digest our breakfast he was getting prepared to put the spinnaker pole out, a job I have come to hate as we always end up niggling and giving sharp retorts to each other during the process. The winching leaves me with aching arms, an aggravated tennis elbow (note to self - must stop playing tennis) and due to the just finished breakfast, terrible indigestion. ***
Apart from feeling a bit hot and bothered it doesn't seem to effect Gerry. Anyway the pole is up and we now have the Yankee poled out on it with the main on the opposing side so we are goose winging for now. I've no doubt that at some stage we will be changing the pole over to the other side and gybing as the wind works its way around to the other side of the stern, something to look forward to - not!
For the moment though we are comfortably doing 6 knots, the engine is silent, the swell is of no great concern, the sun is shining, we can see no other signs of life on or in the water, we have just one more way point to reach and that is Brisbane! We managed to cover a massive 143 NM in the 24 hours which was a bit of a surprise considering how the wind messed about but we'll take it anyway. We have around 750 NM to go until we are at the marina so we are about half way there as of now but there is nothing between here and Brisbane so it will be a boring but hopefully a quick and uneventful last run.
* Baksheesh ! They were stealing the tinned hams, they worked on the principle that you didn't know the local laws, if you did make a scene they would give the boat a good rummage for anything else they fancied.
** Comes with being at sea and on the 'bells' and getting used to crashing at anytime.
*** A fry up will give you indegestion, you are tasting it all day.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
Re: Coopers Quest
by David Fox » Mon Oct 11, 2021 9:19 pm
A record day sail for this leg
09 October 2021
24 16.537'S:163 21.449'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: sunny, wind 7 -18 knots, waves 1.5 meters
We were quite surprised to realise that we had managed to cover 163 NM in the last 24 hours with just 1 hour of engine time - it is almost a record run!
Most of the daytime was spent sailing along quite smoothly with all three sails deployed and us goose winging, not because the wind was coming from aft as per the usual goose wing set up, but because we were too lazy to take down the spinnaker pole and fly the Yankee on the same side as the main, knowing that it would probably need to go back out again as soon as we took it down and neither of us were up for that much effort.
The swell had dropped away making it a pleasant, fairly level platform to be travelling on for a change, no bumping into those edges that leap out at you as you try to go past them, so no additional bruises today. At one point the wind began to increase in intensity and we were howling along at 9 knots, this was too much out of control for Gerry, plus we were putting extra strain on our sails and operating gear so we reefed the main in and quickly followed by reefing in the Yankee which brought our speed back to around 7 knots.
We were expecting a change of wind direction late in the afternoon as per the forecast but it never eventuated, the wind did drop back a bit though and we then let the reefing back out on both the main and the Yankee. The sun set, yet again, behind the line of cloud that seems to gather on the horizon each night, I'm pretty sure it is just to thwart our quest - I'm never going to see that mythical green flash!
The temperature seemed to plummet as soon as the sun left the sky and once again we both found ourselves suffering from cold extremities. Trying to sleep was made more difficult as we had to first try and get warm and neither of us managed a great deal of sleep. At one point I was trying to sleep down below and Gerry had dozed off in the chair in the cockpit when he was woken by an alarm - the AIS was going off , much to his surprise. A somewhat befuddled look around and he spotted a large ship about half a mile off of our stern, not posing any real threat to us as it was going across the stern but we at least know that our AIS was working, we hadn't been certain until this point as we hadn't encountered any other traffic in a few days.
Despite the cold, clear sky and starry night the sea swell increased slightly and became a little violent at times. it always seems so much worse when you can't see it coming towards you and you are taken by surprise, having said that we have certainly had worse swell this trip so we aren't complaining about it.
Dawn seemed a little later this morning, or maybe it was because we were still trying to grab some sleep, but the sun took its time putting in an appearance and warming up the interior of the cockpit. Currently it is beautifully sunny without a cloud in the sky, the swell has settled down to about 1 meter and we are bowling along at 6.5 knots under sail alone, the apparent wind is 12 knots and just aft of the beam. We had a small breakage this morning when the shackle that holds the preventer down to the deck rail snapped in two, it was a good job that we were only going along smoothly and not bouncing around at the time and that we had a replacement shackle which was quickly swapped out, the broken one was consigned to Davey Jones Locker.
We have been looking at the weather forecast for the next couple of days around the area we will be travelling through to go directly into Brisbane and there looks to be a bit of high windage on Tuesday / Wednesday which has us thinking that we might head towards Bundaberg and then travel down the coast to Brisbane, we will be looking at the weather again tomorrow before making the final decision. It will add a few miles to our trip but at least we would be avoiding a potentially frantic day or two. That's my lot for today, its time to try and grab an hour of sleep before lunchtime.
09 October 2021
24 16.537'S:163 21.449'E,
At sea on passage from Fiji to Brisbane
Weather: sunny, wind 7 -18 knots, waves 1.5 meters
We were quite surprised to realise that we had managed to cover 163 NM in the last 24 hours with just 1 hour of engine time - it is almost a record run!
Most of the daytime was spent sailing along quite smoothly with all three sails deployed and us goose winging, not because the wind was coming from aft as per the usual goose wing set up, but because we were too lazy to take down the spinnaker pole and fly the Yankee on the same side as the main, knowing that it would probably need to go back out again as soon as we took it down and neither of us were up for that much effort.
The swell had dropped away making it a pleasant, fairly level platform to be travelling on for a change, no bumping into those edges that leap out at you as you try to go past them, so no additional bruises today. At one point the wind began to increase in intensity and we were howling along at 9 knots, this was too much out of control for Gerry, plus we were putting extra strain on our sails and operating gear so we reefed the main in and quickly followed by reefing in the Yankee which brought our speed back to around 7 knots.
We were expecting a change of wind direction late in the afternoon as per the forecast but it never eventuated, the wind did drop back a bit though and we then let the reefing back out on both the main and the Yankee. The sun set, yet again, behind the line of cloud that seems to gather on the horizon each night, I'm pretty sure it is just to thwart our quest - I'm never going to see that mythical green flash!
The temperature seemed to plummet as soon as the sun left the sky and once again we both found ourselves suffering from cold extremities. Trying to sleep was made more difficult as we had to first try and get warm and neither of us managed a great deal of sleep. At one point I was trying to sleep down below and Gerry had dozed off in the chair in the cockpit when he was woken by an alarm - the AIS was going off , much to his surprise. A somewhat befuddled look around and he spotted a large ship about half a mile off of our stern, not posing any real threat to us as it was going across the stern but we at least know that our AIS was working, we hadn't been certain until this point as we hadn't encountered any other traffic in a few days.
- 3521Sailing into the sun set.jpeg (6.93 KiB) Viewed 6737 times
Despite the cold, clear sky and starry night the sea swell increased slightly and became a little violent at times. it always seems so much worse when you can't see it coming towards you and you are taken by surprise, having said that we have certainly had worse swell this trip so we aren't complaining about it.
Dawn seemed a little later this morning, or maybe it was because we were still trying to grab some sleep, but the sun took its time putting in an appearance and warming up the interior of the cockpit. Currently it is beautifully sunny without a cloud in the sky, the swell has settled down to about 1 meter and we are bowling along at 6.5 knots under sail alone, the apparent wind is 12 knots and just aft of the beam. We had a small breakage this morning when the shackle that holds the preventer down to the deck rail snapped in two, it was a good job that we were only going along smoothly and not bouncing around at the time and that we had a replacement shackle which was quickly swapped out, the broken one was consigned to Davey Jones Locker.
We have been looking at the weather forecast for the next couple of days around the area we will be travelling through to go directly into Brisbane and there looks to be a bit of high windage on Tuesday / Wednesday which has us thinking that we might head towards Bundaberg and then travel down the coast to Brisbane, we will be looking at the weather again tomorrow before making the final decision. It will add a few miles to our trip but at least we would be avoiding a potentially frantic day or two. That's my lot for today, its time to try and grab an hour of sleep before lunchtime.
- David Fox
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:56 pm
- Location: Newbury ,Berks
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