2016-05-06 10:00PM UTC, 37°14'S 176°37'W # noon
2016-05-07 2:33AM UTC, 37°21'S 176°21'W # jibed to 100
2016-05-07 10:00PM UTC, 37°31'S 175°17'W # noon, spin+m1
2016-05-08 10:00PM UTC, 37°29'S 173°19'W # noon
2016-05-09 4:21AM UTC, 37°27'S 172°32'W
Today's noon to noon distance was 93nm. Yesterdays was 65nm. Tomorrow's is going to be better as I'm finally sailing in 12-15 knots of wind, port beam, heading East at 5-6 knots.
I spent hours traveling at around 1 knot yesterday and the day before, with the spinnaker up but not filling. Surprisingly, my Monitor self steering wind vane continued to steer and there was enough movement to retain steerage. I hate it when the boat slowly moves in circles without steerage, but luckily that hasn't happened yet this trip.
Today I have had mainly high cloud, with a few rain clouds floating by creating localized squall winds. I'm sailing conservatively with a double reefed main, staysail and double reefed genoa - but still moving well so I'm happy - this setup is good for a wide range of wind conditions, if it gets too light tonight I can easily unfurl some genoa.
Tomorrow looks like the wind is starting to change in front of a high I expect in the area the day after, but if the forecasts hold, I'll be able to sail tomorrow - I may slow down dramatically again the following day.
All is well aboard.
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Sunday, May 8, 2016
Friday, May 6, 2016
Passage to Tahiti: day 5
2016-05-05 6:23PM UTC, 37°31'S 179°11'W # jibed
2016-05-05 10:00PM UTC, 37°30'S 178°44'W # noon
2016-05-06 5:55AM UTC, 37°25'S 177°54'W
2016-05-06 6:18PM UTC, 37°14'S 176°48'W
2016-05-06 10:00PM UTC, 37°14'S 176°37'W # noon
2016-05-07 2:33AM UTC, 37°21'S 176°21'W # jibed to 100
Today's noon to noon distance was 103nm. Yesterdays was 121nm. Tomorrow's is going to be a much smaller number!
Yesterday I had some wind and I used it to make my way towards my destination - that being the entire point of being out here. Today 1/3 of the day was making my way further south in hopes that I could find a little wind. By 4pm I decided that doing a tactical move at 2 knots was pointless, so I jibed and started heading east again. I had my spinnaker up at the time, as there is only 6-7 knots of wind, and like a chicken I snuffed the spinnaker, jibed the boat and re-raised it. That takes quite a while! I am not quite as fast as some racing teams I have seen, taking roughly 15 minutes to accomplish the snuff/jibe/raise. Although to be fair, 5 minutes of that was me trying to steer Luckness's stern through the wind with the GPS speed showing 0.0. I still haven't motored - its all sailing so far. Some of it very slow...
When I left I was expecting to be becalmed at points in time, but preferred to get out what I thought would be 300 or 400 miles and bob around waiting for wind than to wait longer in NZ. I've actually gone a little more than 480nm, and spent 1 1/2 hours bobing around today. I had the spinnaker up doing around 1.8 knots when the wind fell even further and I slowed below 1. With the swell pattern and my direction the boat was rolling and as a result the spinnaker was filling and spilling the wind as the boat went through its roll motion. I ended up lowing the sail and decided to wait for wind to arrive. The thing is, when you start that, you don't know how long you'll have to wait. The GRIBs were showing 9 knots of wind where I was, so I couldn't rely in them to tell me when wind would arrive - they were saying it should have been here. After an hour, no wind. Luckily after an hour and a half some wind arrived, I raised the spinnaker again and rocked off at 2 knots. Its been a slow day.
It looks like tomorrow is also going to be slow. The next day and a half after tomorrow look like they will bring some wind, then it vanishes again and then it may be back for a while, with the GRIB forecasts showing high teens/low 20's, all from behind me or sightly forward of the beam. It will be nice to start making some faster progress.
Today has been sunny and warm-ish. All is well aboard.
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2016-05-05 10:00PM UTC, 37°30'S 178°44'W # noon
2016-05-06 5:55AM UTC, 37°25'S 177°54'W
2016-05-06 6:18PM UTC, 37°14'S 176°48'W
2016-05-06 10:00PM UTC, 37°14'S 176°37'W # noon
2016-05-07 2:33AM UTC, 37°21'S 176°21'W # jibed to 100
Today's noon to noon distance was 103nm. Yesterdays was 121nm. Tomorrow's is going to be a much smaller number!
Yesterday I had some wind and I used it to make my way towards my destination - that being the entire point of being out here. Today 1/3 of the day was making my way further south in hopes that I could find a little wind. By 4pm I decided that doing a tactical move at 2 knots was pointless, so I jibed and started heading east again. I had my spinnaker up at the time, as there is only 6-7 knots of wind, and like a chicken I snuffed the spinnaker, jibed the boat and re-raised it. That takes quite a while! I am not quite as fast as some racing teams I have seen, taking roughly 15 minutes to accomplish the snuff/jibe/raise. Although to be fair, 5 minutes of that was me trying to steer Luckness's stern through the wind with the GPS speed showing 0.0. I still haven't motored - its all sailing so far. Some of it very slow...
When I left I was expecting to be becalmed at points in time, but preferred to get out what I thought would be 300 or 400 miles and bob around waiting for wind than to wait longer in NZ. I've actually gone a little more than 480nm, and spent 1 1/2 hours bobing around today. I had the spinnaker up doing around 1.8 knots when the wind fell even further and I slowed below 1. With the swell pattern and my direction the boat was rolling and as a result the spinnaker was filling and spilling the wind as the boat went through its roll motion. I ended up lowing the sail and decided to wait for wind to arrive. The thing is, when you start that, you don't know how long you'll have to wait. The GRIBs were showing 9 knots of wind where I was, so I couldn't rely in them to tell me when wind would arrive - they were saying it should have been here. After an hour, no wind. Luckily after an hour and a half some wind arrived, I raised the spinnaker again and rocked off at 2 knots. Its been a slow day.
It looks like tomorrow is also going to be slow. The next day and a half after tomorrow look like they will bring some wind, then it vanishes again and then it may be back for a while, with the GRIB forecasts showing high teens/low 20's, all from behind me or sightly forward of the beam. It will be nice to start making some faster progress.
Today has been sunny and warm-ish. All is well aboard.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Passage to Tahiti: day 3
2016-05-05 4:00AM UTC, 36°23'S 179°51'E
Since leaving NZ the weather has given me a nice gentle start. Today is the roughest it has been, and that is perhaps 14 knots of WNW wind and a 1.5m sea - still very gentle. It has started to cool down, which is a trend that is bound to continue until I make the turn north, heading to the tropics. However, that turn is likely not for at least 10 days.
I am currently heading generally SE, sailing downwind on a broad reach, or a bit deeper. From reading the weather forecasts and seeing my predicted positions in it, I have a plan on how to navigate the highs and light wind that are ahead of me. The plan may not work out of course, but I might as well make a plan as it helps pass the day if nothing else. I hope what happens is that I continue heading SE all night and then tomorrow jibe and head generally east. For the rest of the forecast there are currently West winds down by latitude 37 or below. There are light days and more medium days, so I hope that with a mixture of Genoa and Spinnaker, on and off, I can jibe my way East until the weather changes and I have to adjust my plan.
I've started re-reading the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. I haven't read this series for over 15 years - its such a pleasure to read.
All is well onboard.
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Since leaving NZ the weather has given me a nice gentle start. Today is the roughest it has been, and that is perhaps 14 knots of WNW wind and a 1.5m sea - still very gentle. It has started to cool down, which is a trend that is bound to continue until I make the turn north, heading to the tropics. However, that turn is likely not for at least 10 days.
I am currently heading generally SE, sailing downwind on a broad reach, or a bit deeper. From reading the weather forecasts and seeing my predicted positions in it, I have a plan on how to navigate the highs and light wind that are ahead of me. The plan may not work out of course, but I might as well make a plan as it helps pass the day if nothing else. I hope what happens is that I continue heading SE all night and then tomorrow jibe and head generally east. For the rest of the forecast there are currently West winds down by latitude 37 or below. There are light days and more medium days, so I hope that with a mixture of Genoa and Spinnaker, on and off, I can jibe my way East until the weather changes and I have to adjust my plan.
I've started re-reading the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. I haven't read this series for over 15 years - its such a pleasure to read.
All is well onboard.
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Monday, May 2, 2016
Passage to Tahiti: day 1
I left New Zealand yesterday, motoring out of the bay of islands in a flat calm. 3 1/2 hours later I found some wind and have been sailing slowly ever since.
I saw the nurse who had been treating my fingers last week, and she thought that they had healed well enough for me to leave. I saw her on Wednesday and left on the following Monday (NZ Monday, North America Sunday.)
The weather window that I have left on looks like its going to be on the light side. There is an unusual pattern established where there is a big high east of the country which seems to head east and then come back and join with the high that is following it. As a result, the weather in this area looks light for the length of the forecast - which I'll take, as a gentle few days will be welcome. I may end up drifting for periods of this trip due to lack of wind, but I wanted to get away and there is nothing wrong with a light wind sail in gentle seas.
This morning the wind eventually faded off to almost nothing and I lowered my Staysail and furled my Genoa and raised my Spinnaker (spin-drifter.) At first it just sat there lifeless, as there was no wind at all, but then a few whisps of wind arrived and I stared moving. I love this sail! I've been able to move along nicely in wind that would otherwise leave me wallowing. It looks like this trip I will be using the Spinnaker quite a lot, at least as far as I can see in the forecast, these things sometimes change. I'm currently moving at 4.5 to 5 knots in 5 to 7 knots of apparent wind, on my port side beam.
For a change, I'm going to be reporting my positions in a LuckGrib friendly manner. If you have a copy of my app, you should be able to copy/paste the following text into the 'create point' editor window. First step would be to create a vessel called Luckness, then paste the following into the position report field and press 'return':
Luckness
2016-05-01 11:00PM UTC, 35°14.33'S 174°06.15'E
2016-05-02 4:50AM UTC, 35°10.3'S 174°23.6'E
2016-05-02 7:16PM UTC, 35°25'S 175°25'E
2016-05-02 10:02PM UTC, 35°28'S 175°34'E
2016-05-03 4:00AM UTC, 35°38'S 175°59'E
All is well. There are many miles to go!
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I saw the nurse who had been treating my fingers last week, and she thought that they had healed well enough for me to leave. I saw her on Wednesday and left on the following Monday (NZ Monday, North America Sunday.)
The weather window that I have left on looks like its going to be on the light side. There is an unusual pattern established where there is a big high east of the country which seems to head east and then come back and join with the high that is following it. As a result, the weather in this area looks light for the length of the forecast - which I'll take, as a gentle few days will be welcome. I may end up drifting for periods of this trip due to lack of wind, but I wanted to get away and there is nothing wrong with a light wind sail in gentle seas.
This morning the wind eventually faded off to almost nothing and I lowered my Staysail and furled my Genoa and raised my Spinnaker (spin-drifter.) At first it just sat there lifeless, as there was no wind at all, but then a few whisps of wind arrived and I stared moving. I love this sail! I've been able to move along nicely in wind that would otherwise leave me wallowing. It looks like this trip I will be using the Spinnaker quite a lot, at least as far as I can see in the forecast, these things sometimes change. I'm currently moving at 4.5 to 5 knots in 5 to 7 knots of apparent wind, on my port side beam.
For a change, I'm going to be reporting my positions in a LuckGrib friendly manner. If you have a copy of my app, you should be able to copy/paste the following text into the 'create point' editor window. First step would be to create a vessel called Luckness, then paste the following into the position report field and press 'return':
Luckness
2016-05-01 11:00PM UTC, 35°14.33'S 174°06.15'E
2016-05-02 4:50AM UTC, 35°10.3'S 174°23.6'E
2016-05-02 7:16PM UTC, 35°25'S 175°25'E
2016-05-02 10:02PM UTC, 35°28'S 175°34'E
2016-05-03 4:00AM UTC, 35°38'S 175°59'E
All is well. There are many miles to go!
----------
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