Hi All,
Almost halfway….GO MYSTIC GO!!!
As our girlfriend Jeanette always says when winter is over….NO MO MITTENS!!!! Yes, I have shed the sweat pants and have put on the shorts…finally and hopefully for the next 6 months!! The air temp is now mid-70’s….sweet as!!!!
Another day very close to forecast and trawler like!!!!
Seas stayed with the oily surface most of the day….winds <8kts SW….then during the night the winds backed to W-WNW and stayed in the 5-10kt range….a slight headsea!
The swell seemed to build back to 8-10′ with an occasional 12+’….very impressive….but overnight diminished in the 6-8′ range.
We did have some light squalls with little wind and light rain in the morning around 30s! Gave Mystic a nice washing!!
We decided to run a bit faster than normal (1700 rpm vs normal 1600 rpm) at the beginning of the passage to try and outrun some predicted NW headseas. The forecast has had winds from 5-10 kts, no big deal, to as high as 25kts….a big deal. The difference in 5 kts and 25 kts is over a very small range….maybe 60-100 miles….not much in the world of forecasting a fast approaching front 500 miles to the south. Well, so far it looks like we split the difference and will get 10-15 kts later today….we shall see. If we had been about 75nm further north we might have avoided all together….ugh!!
So far, the fuel consumption is as predicted….we may still have to slow down to conserve fuel but will keep going at 1700 rpm at least another day.
We are trying to keep the speedup but have run into the predicted counter current…it is a good one knocking off 0.5-1.0 kts in speed!!! Hopefully it lasts only another 10-12 hours. We had this same counter current on the run to Fiji last year. I show if we average close to 7.8 kts for the rest of the way we should make PV early Fri afternoon.
So, how am I doing today….well it’s my birthday and I’m up at 3:00am writing this blog after 3 cups of coffee….yep living the good life:)))) This BD doesn’t have a zero in it so no big deal….except as a good mate recently said…..just luv this kiwi talk Adam….we are definitely playing the back nine mate….arghhhhhh!!!!
Stats: May 11 1900 UTC (7:00am May 12 local time):
Position: 27 14S 171 28E
Traveled: 183nm today; 549 nm total; 609nm to go; ETA to Port Vila is Friday ~1:30pm, in time to checkin!!!
Course: 327M COG
Wind: current is 10-15 kts WNW
Waves: 2m SW swell, long period; a 1-2′ windchop WNW
Speed: current speed is 6.6 kts SOG; has varied 6.3-8.4 kts; avg is 7.8 kts total; 1700 RPM
Weather: 20% cloud cover this am; sea temp 75 deg F; air temp 72 deg F
Boat sightings: 4 today; 10 total
Fishing: Hmmm….still a bit too cold and no room in the freezer….yes I know, pathetic!!!
Sail: down
Fuel burn: 1.26 nmpg yesterday, 1.30nmpg total; that is really quite good at this higher rpm. It is hard to take accurate fuel readings in this swell so I’m pretty sure it will come down. We will probably need to slow down to save fuel at some point; 1700 rpm
Hope all is well!
John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO!!!