A Traumatic Ending to this Passage Also

 

No wind, calm seas - but trouble on the horizon!

A Traumatic Ending to this Passage Also

Well, as we expected, the weather has been deteriorating. After a frustrating 24 hours of almost no wind, it all hit with a vengeance Wed afternoon. By then we had a forecast of what to expect, somewhat. A high pressure system with its associated cold front has been moving east from Australia and then collided with the normal southeast trades and warmer weather. That has formed a trough of low pressure moving east followed by a "squash zone" of rapidly changing pressures. Translation: It is squally and windy and for a long time. As we saw the clouds approaching we went to reef the mainsail and the inhaul halyard broke! Now with the wind and rain starting Rob is out on deck with lots of loose sail trying to crank it in by hand. We have in boom furling so there was no good way to get it neatly rolled in. But there is a small baggy piece of it up which is doing the job fine.

We did heave to Wed night as we wanted to know if and how our boat does that. We never could get the boat stopped but "sailed " about 2 knots at right angles to the wind. The plan was to get some rest but found it difficult with winds mid 30's and high seas and rain. There is a bad south swell added from a gale in NZ. We were concerned that the bungee cords holding the steering wheel might break, and the frame holding the bimini t was shaking badly with the windage on it. It should have come down. Since then, it has continued to blow 20 to 39 kn. but not as much rain. The seas, of course, can't go down yet. Some of the waves break on the boat and things below crash around a lot. And the cockpit is very wet. One wave last night came down the companion way into the boat. We now have a board in place there which we forgot to do when the wind changed further back.

Yesterday we hand steered most of the time to take the waves better. We had up some staysail up also. We decided not to stop at Nuie as the anchorage would not be good in this weather. Also we would have had to beat more south to get there. So now we expect to be in Vavau in Tonga by Sun. We have taken in the staysail as we are travelling too fast and don't want to arrive in the night. The autopilot is at work now and only cuts out sometimes on a big wave. Seas are probably 12 to 15 ft but various directions.

The new air mass is quite different. The temp has dropped from 30 to 20 C and we are wearing foul weather gear. The pressure has gone up from 1007 to 1015. Things are more stable but it is still tiring. It will actually be Mon when we arrive in Tonga as we cross the date line on this trip. That turns out to be convenient as you can't check in on Sundays there. More on the date line next blog.