Worrall Wind Update - Fiji Bound - Day 4

UTC/Local Time:Monday October 25 2300/Tuesday, October 26, 1200

Latitude: 18 37.908 S
Longitude: 178 56.292 E
Course Over Ground: 295 at 7.0 knots motor sailing
Wind Direction: SE, guessing 18-20
Sea Swell: ESE 1-3 meters
Sky: 100% cloud cover
Barometric Pressure: 1016

Update: Quite a night!

Last night our anomometer gave it up. We think there must be a loose connection at the mast. We weren't getting either an accurate readout of wind direction or speed on our instrument panel. At one point, the arrow was going around in a circle like Linda Blair's head in the Exorcist and reading between 0-45 knots, whatever its possessed-self felt like.

Our redundancy plan is to check the secondary anomometer on the mizzen. No good, it needs new batteries and isn't working either. Our third plan is to look up at the Windex, the big arrow on the mast. That works pretty well if the skylight is open, but we hadn't taken the cover off, so when it started to rain, I shut the skylight and couldn't see a thing. I was totally without knowing the direction of the wind and it was shifting all around.

Russ was sleeping and I didn't want to wake him to go outside in the wind, waves, and rain to take the cover off the skylight. So my fourth plan was to watch our Nobletec monitor and when the boat started to head-up (which it does when we get strong gusts), was to help Hydie (Hydrovane wind steering system) by giving some rudder to the down-wind side, and then turn the opposite direction as soon as I hear the main do its backwind snap, and back-in-place pop when the sail fills in from the correct side. The waves not always coming from our rear created a situation where I did the rice krispie routine and counted the snaps and pops to know whether we were back winded or not.

To complicate matters, we were trying not to drop below our course line because of a marked hazard on our port side. Fortunately, we had reduced our jib to a little hanky and had a triple reefed main. We were running down wind (wind coming from our back on a port tack.) This means that that the jib was poled to starboard, and the main and boom were let way out and prevented from an accidental gybe. The problem with this configuration, but the only one that we could use given the wind direction and course line, is there isn't a lot of wiggle room when you are trying to avoid an obstacle or hazard on your port. Too much up wind - head for the hazard, too much downwind - back wind the main (this would create a gybe if we didn't have the preventer on.)

From 8:00 - 1:30 (my watch, I had to help Hydie with hand steering). When Russ got up at 1:30, we took the cover off the skylight so that we could at least see the Windex through the poring rain. The wind was howling and shifting, and we were dropping quite a ways below our course line despite our best efforts. The boat predictor line was pointing right at the hazard.

We made a plan that we would let the boat go more south and drop below the hazard instead of above it and make a course change to north in the morning. Unfortunately, going south instead of north, meant we would have unfriendly seas rolling us and slamming us. I went to bed and knew Russ would have to be hand steering with Hydie the rest of the night. When I got up at 6:00 after sleeping fairly soundly without a lot of rocking and rolloing, we were above the course line. I was amazed. Russ had discovered that the boat with the strong winds was still making 4-5 knots overground with the main back winded from the stern and the following seas pushing us northwith this strange configuration, almost a fore reach in reverse. Not pretty, but it worked.

We were still too close for comfort to the hazard by dawn and decided it was time for the iron genny (the engine). We looked at our course through our 3-D charted imagery and saw a cable running 12000 meters down to the ocean floor at the marked hazard site. Presumably this is a weather buoy of some sort. At least it was a relief to know it wasn't the top of a volcano, sunken ship, or reef.

This 3-D stuff is so cool, it's fascinating to see the contours of the ocean floor and an island like Viti Levu as a tiny mound above a huge underwater mountain. It's like playing a video game. We went out in the early morning rain, rolled in the jib, pulled the mainsail to center, retired Hydie for a well deserved rest,and turned on the engine and fired up the auto pilot. We needed to generate some power and to get the heck to Fiji. There are some more strong winds and dark clouds coming behind us that we want to beat to port. This passage is one which have chosen not to dawdle.

At this point, we are no longer in VHF contact with our fast moving friends on Sidewinder. Skylight is now slightly behind us, as they traveled quite a ways north during the night and are now course correcting to the next way point. Claudia called on the VHF to tell us she can see us up ahead of them. That's a switch! We are not used to having anyone behind us. With our motor on we are moving 6-8 knots. They too are motor saiing, but closer to 5 knots. If all goes well, we all hope to reach Lautoka by tomorrow afternoon. We are supposed to get a small respite this afternoon and tomorrow morning from strong winds and seas, so we may be motor sailing the rest of the way. We'll see. In the mean time,

All is well with the 2 Sail R's on Worrall Wind.