Halfway to Hobart

Friday, January 18, 2019.
40 11.8S 127 30.2E

After we rounded Cape Leeuwin and entered the Great Australian Bight for our west to east crossing to Hobart, Tasmania, the wind died. We found ourselves in the middle of a high pressure system with light and variable winds. The gribs didn't show much relief for many days ahead and the prevailing westerlies were too far south to motor down to. So, we resigned ourselves to waiting it out. We experienced long periods of flat calm and winds less than five knots for up to twelve hours at a time. Once winds hit a consistent 8-10 knots, all sail went up and we were off sailing for a while longer. As long as we keep moving to the SE we should eventually pick up westerlies which are usually the top edge of the low pressure systems (which move clockwise in the Southern hemisphere) continually cycling through the latitudes known as the Roaring Forties. We don't necessarily want to get too far south into the middle of these very fast-moving systems as the winds can be very strong in the middle of them. We'll have to drop down to 44S in order to round the bottom of Tasmania. Currently, most lows seem to be staying south of this, but, that could change at any time.

Between calms, we've had two, twelve hour sessions of 30 knot winds so far and some more moderate wind periods. Unusually, we even had thunder and lightning. The lightning was very spectacular, luckily not too close. We could see the squalls all around us clearly on the radar. We were hoping for rain to wash the salt and bird deposits off the boat, but, we only got a very light sprinkle. Temperatures are about 20C during the day and the cabin drops to 15C at night, a little cooler than we'd expected. We're not sorry to be missing the 45C+ temps the rest of Australia was experiencing just before we left Perth. We've been enjoying seeing albatross and other pelagic sea birds against a backdrop of mostly sunny skies.

We've been at sea for eleven days now and have sailed 1,138 miles, all sailed and almost all made good! We have about the same again to reach Hobart, so, are just over halfway through this passage. It's been a little slower than expected, due to the number of calms we've experienced, but, we're thinking the pace will pick up now we're south of 40 degrees latitude and hopefully into those prevailing westerlies.

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com

CONTINUE READING

Rounding Cape Leeuwin

Friday, January 11, 2019.
35 45.4E 116 54.4S

Ever since we arrived in Western Australia, Cape Leeuwin, the extreme southwestern point of Australia has loomed large in our thoughts. We knew we'd be sailing around it at one point on our planned route to Tasmania. As time passed, its reputation grew larger in our minds. Prevailing southerly winds, wide open ocean to the west, ocean currents and swell, no good anchorage or shelter, reefs, shipwrecks, the worries grew. As is often the case, but, not always, its bark was worse than its bite and our rounding turned out to be a benign experience. If I didn't want to jinx the rest of the passage, I might even say that we enjoyed it. We were certainly elated once clear.

It was a rough, early morning start leaving Rottnest Island, near Perth. Things soon calmed down though and we were sailing, in the right direction! We were able to put the boat through its paces and we were thrilled at how effortlessly, with our new cutter rig, we could cruise along at 6-8 knots in just 13-20 knots of wind. Sail handling was easier, loads were less and sheet leads were much improved. We could sail closer to the wind than on any other boat we've owned. One successful project almost completed! I say almost because there were a couple of failures as well. Both a staysail block and a running backstay tackle broke apart. We've now done the sails and standing rigging and had started a program of running rigging and hardware replacement (expensive), but, looks like we'll have to expedite that now.

As we continued south the winds tended to either SW or SE, usually 20-25 knots, none of the dreaded southerlies. We even had some hoped-for easterlies just as we started heading south from Cape Naturaliste along the last stretch towards Cape Leeuwin. For a change, even our tacking strategy worked really well. We were able to clear Leeuwin with one very long tack out to the west and then back southeast.

Once clear and into the Great Australian Bight we entered the middle of a high pressure area, little wind and flat calm, as you can see in the picture. Beautiful, but, you're not going anywhere unless you motor. There's not enough fuel for that, so, we will just have to wait the calms out, the wind will always come back sometime...

CONTINUE READING

Sailing at last

It was an intense last few weeks at Two Rocks (near Perth, Western Australia) getting ready for departure, but, we're finally sailing at last! Here's a shot of our new cutter rigged sails in action. We're very happy that this significant change seems to be successful.  A cutter rig has three standard sails: main, staysail (smaller inner sail) and yankee (a high-cut outer sail). When winds allow, all three sails are flown together, like in this photo. The perfect conditions shown here only lasted an hour though. The winds went south, the direction we need to go and we were soon reducing sail and motorsailing, with the main sail alone, to get some southing in.

Shortly after departing, we had a few hydraulic hiccups in our steering and a few other issues cropped up. The wind started to pick up and when a strong wind warning was announced we decided to make this first day out a mini-shakedown cruise and stop into Rottnest Island, just off Perth, to wait for a better forecast and to deal with the issues prior to heading out on our planned, longer offshore passage to Hobart, Tasmania, about 1,900 nautical miles.

We got to the anchorage at Thomson Bay in late afternoon on a Sunday. It was packed with boats, mostly daytrippers from Perth, we were the only cruising boat there. Unfortunately, the first spot we picked to drop anchor was next to somebody who didn't want neighbours, insisting that we were 'on his anchor'. We weren't, but, he was standing on his foredeck gesticulating and as we didn't want him glaring at us the whole time, we picked up and moved, three times, before we got our anchor to stick. There's one in every anchorage, it seems. The worst part is he picked up to go home an hour later. We stayed two nights. It didn't spoil our stay though, we enjoyed a beautiful day at anchor. Here's the view from the port side of the boat.

In front of the boat...

and beside the boat...beautiful! G spotted a large manta ray on the bottom.

We would have liked to have gone ashore, but, we had many jobs to do and our dinghy was all packed up and lashed down on the foredeck for our offshore passage. The island looks lovely, has trails, accommodation and no traffic, only local service vehicles allowed. They also have 'quokkas' another of Australia's unique animals.

www.marinetraffic.com has picked up our AIS (automatic identification system) already and will be showing our current position as we go along (assuming we're near a shore station, don't worry if we don't show up on there). You can access this site from the 'Find Gjoa' page tab on the menu above.

We won't have internet at sea, but, will be able to receive emails (no attachments). We can also post to the blog with one photo, will try and post something along the way.

CONTINUE READING