A good 24 hours progress charging along at speeds of 20+ knots with Cape Horn 3400 miles ahead. In a call to Oman Sail HQ this morning Charlie reported “we have 22 knots of boat speed with 25 knots of wind and a short sharp sea state that is forcing us to sail deeper (further downwind) to reduce the risk of damage, the swell is quiet nice but the wind is blowing the waves in from all directions crashing them into the boat and occasionally over the top and into the cockpit.
There is a high pressure system situated to the north west of the Chatham Islands and tracking east faster than Musandam but will pass to the north of them during friday and saturday. A low pressure situated south east near 55-57 S /156-160 E, in between these systems they are in a very favorable south – south westerly flow. Currently lighter winds are expected by Monday.
Here is the News from onboard today. “We have had a fairly reasonable 24 hours since yesterday, there is an unpleasant sea on top of difficult swell meaning we must sail deeper than we really should be and hence we are slower which means we get hit by more waves, which reduces our speed again! It’s catch 22 but the alternative is to try to blast away and risk doing damage, the motion and the noise is bad enough already so to risk anything further seems pointless – we just have to wait of the sea to sort itself out. In these conditions we have had a reoccurrence of a small bug in our instrument and autopilot system. It seems related to the waves but we have hit some big seas and nothing happens, then all of a sudden the system will be off for a few seconds before coming back on…it’s possible to live with it ‘just’ but we are keen to find the cause of the problem and resolve it incase it starts to get worse. It has been occupying a few minds for a while now, if it’s a loose connection somewhere it’s like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
Apart from that life continues as normal, it’s been wet enough on deck for Loik to be the first to break out the yellow suite – a one piece dry suit that has full wrist and neck seals, the red wet weather gear has given up the unequal struggle between the sea and dry clothes beneath! I expect everyone else to follow suit in the next 24 hours or so and this will be our outer layer for a long time, likely at least until south of the Cape of Good Hope. Imagine standing in the cockpit with 5 or 6 people throwing full buckets of water over you, that’s what some of the waves feel like. The water is still fairly warm (around 15 degrees) and much of today so far it is partly sunny – so it feels warm – later in this leg the water temperature will plunge, requiring these drenchings to be avoided at all costs, rather than suffered as they are now.”