Hi All,
Wow ow wow…what a frickin day!!!!
The only good thing to say about that front….it’s over, we survived and we made it through with just some minor damage!!!
That was one onery front…..much more intense and lasted much longer than expected. I know these waters can get even nastier but for us in our ten years of cruising on this trawler, that was the roughest waters we have been in for such a prolonged time….really!!!!
As mentioned yesterday, the winds came at 4:30am and then lasted for 18 hours until 10:30pm….yikes. We had over 10 hours of 20-25G33….ugh. The winds initially were 15-20, then built to 20-25G33 but by 8:30am had calmed to 15-20G24 and stayed that way until noon. We thought maybe that was it and the front blew through much faster. Oh, were we wrong. At noon a series of squalls came through and the winds built back to 25-30G33 and stayed like that for 7 hours…yikes. Finally @ 10:30pm the winds reluctantly calmed to around 12 knots!!!
The seas were a washtub with a 10-14′ (3-4+m) SSW swell….yes, that is right….much bigger than our bow stanchions…..coupled with a 5-8′ (2-3m) S-SSE-E wind chop. In the afternoon the SSW swell went S then SE with the wind and the seas did have a better pattern. But those big waves on our beam gave us fits. Throughout the day we were constantly tacking one way or the other and adjusting speeds. We mainly kept the speed in the high 5’s to low 6’s. Around 10:30pm we throttled up to normal rpm (1600) and were doing 7.2 kts. We did have a big counter current 0.5-1.0 kt the whole day….ugh!!!!
Finally @ 1:00am the winds and seas had calmed enough for us to speed up even more (1700 rpm) but not too much as we are dipping into our 25% fuel reserve. I estimate we will have a little over 200-225 gallons when we arrive….about 17%. ETA now into Marsden is 7:30pm NZ local time which is about sunset and 1 hour ahead of Fiji….TG for longer days here. I think Kathy and I will be fighting over the tequila bottle 🙂 )))
Not only do we want to try and get in before dark as we do have to dock probably by ourselves at the quarantine dock but there is more weather coming. There is another front coming late Sunday/early Monday and another one Wednesday with significant wind/rain….oh joy….cold and rainy……yuck. Tonight there is forecast to be strong winds late but we will catch some in the 10-15kt range hopefully from the NW, behind us, but it could be from the West or on our beam…..yuck….thus the giddy up and go…..I think Mystic smells the dock…..peace and quiet and a good wash job to get this solid layer of salt off her 🙂 )))
Boat Stuff: We had some damage that we have never experienced before from all those monster waves:
John’s Laptop: yes, we are 2 for 2 this season having lost Kathy’s laptop last May. I had a half full glass of water by my lap secured with our never fail boat show holders gluing the glass onto the “PH table when we got slammed the hardest we have ever been, up over a wave and then slammed into the bottom. Yep, the glass went over right onto the laptop. We dried it the best we could but no joy. I just tried it and it wants to start but no display screen…..ugh, ugh, ugh:((((( I even hooked it up to our Big Bay display but no joy:(((( I had just downloaded the morning email….good news, I emailed Jeremy @ uuplus from my old laptop and he emailed us back those 9 emails. I do have the computer backed up but the last date was 10/16….wth, I had it set on daily…..turns out the drive is full….wth….it was supposed to write over files but instead kept a daily b/u….so, worse case I lost 9 days so could be a lot worse!!!! We shall see if anyone can revive this baby in Whangarei!!!
Flybridge: We lost all 3 dinghy tie down straps….can you imagine the force it took to do that….we had 2 spares so I struggled to go up there to replace…..the force of those 25-30 kt winds plus the boat motion knocked me down several times…..finally I just crawled around….yikes….my hat is off to all our sailboater friends!!! All 3 of our gas cans broke free and we lost an empty one overboard….Maunie/Bravo/Somerset if you see it please do the MOB drill or COB:))) The cooler also broke free but we rescued it.
Salon: The GE refer took several hits…..several jars came loose and 1 or 2 spilled…PK was not happy about that. Plus she lost/broke several decorative pieces and some sea shells….ouch!!!
Bilge: Around dusk the bilge light came on….gulp…Kathy quickly went below and discovered we had a lot of saltwater….gulp, gulp….but she quickly found the leak….the forward head discharge hose to the thru hull had chafed through and water was coming back up the thru hull form all the boat slamming….we quickly shutoff the thru hull which should have been closed anyway….our bad….just OMT (one more thing) to add to the repair list….ugh!!!!
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Stats: 1900 UTC 25 Oct (7:00am 10/26 Fiji time):
Position: 34 24S, 74 50E
Traveled: 149nm today; 1026nm total, 94nm to go; ETA into Marsden Cove is 7:30pm local NZ time
Wind: current is 5-9 kts SE
Seas: 1-3′ short period SE
Course: 170M COG
Speed: current is 7.5 kts SOG; varied 5.2-7.7 kts for the day, avg was 6.2 kts, our slowest day; 7.2 kts avg total for the passage
Weather: 10% cloud cover; 62.2 deg F water temp; 58 deg F air temp….yes, we are wearing all the layers we own 🙂 ))
Boat Sightings: 0 today; 1 total for the trip
Fishing: are you kidding!!!!
Sail: down or else it would have been shredded to pieces
Fuel Mileage: 1.21 nmpg; that is very poor, it should have been 1.5+ nmpg at the 1400 rpm’s we ran; that is what a 0.5-1.0 kt adverse current, strong head winds and seas will do…..arghhhhh!!! 1.2 nmpg for the passage….not good at all!
Hope all is well!!!
John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO
GO SF GIANTS GO
