Mauritius to Richard's Bay, South Africa - Day 7
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Mon 28 May 2012 09:55
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27:03.886S 38:22.549E
May 28, 2012
Racing the clock.
The latest update from Bruce was not the best news. It's
not terrible news, but it does present a bit of
a challenge. The trick to crossing the fast southerly flowing Agulhas
Current is to do it when the wind is not blowing against it. The general
rule, as related to us by Bruce, is that you don't want to cross the current in
anything greater than a 15 knot southerly wind. Even that amount of wind
creates some short, steep, potentially breaking waves in the strongest flowing
part of the current. It's possible to cross in a southerly wind up to 20
knots, but it would be darn uncomfortable and not something we want to
experience. So, here's the deal: the light easterly wind we
currently have is going to slowly clock around to the north, northwest, and
then southwest. The forecast says this will happen some time between 8 and
10am Wednesday morning. The southerly wind will be strongest (23 knots) as
soon as it appears, then slowly ease back to 13-18 knots as it clocks around to
the south and southeast over the course of 12-15 hours. We would like to
finish crossing the current (which is nearly 80 miles wide near Richard's Bay)
by the time the southwest wind appears Wednesday morning. To do that,
we should start crossing the current by 8pm Tuesday night because it will
take us a good 12 hours to motor 80 miles in the predicted light north and
northwest wind. At the moment, we are 200 miles from
the edge of the Agulhas current. In order to reach the current by 8pm
tomorrow (Tuesday) night, we must maintain a speed of 6 knots. Normally 6
knots wouldn't be a problem, but the wind has become very light (as predicted),
and the favorable current we've had for the past three days, has turned slightly
negative. The engine is running and we are motorsailing with all
three sails in a full out attempt to get there as fast as possible.
The good news.
All of this may sound dreadful, but really, we are in
extremely good spirits. When we received the bad news yesterday from
Bruce, we immediately leapt to action. The question we asked ourselves
was, "How do we make the best use of the 10-15 knots of easterly wind
blowing from behind us?" The answer? Downwind rig.
Ahhhh....our favorite sail configuration. The one that almost effortlessly
took us across the Pacific 2,900 miles from the Galapagos to the Marquesas in
2008. The only trouble was that yesterday, we still had the new,
smaller headsail up, and the downwind rig requires use of the genoa (our
old, much larger headsail). Not that we were sorry to have the
smaller headsail up, it worked brilliantly in the strong winds we had the
previous night, never requiring a single reef. But - every day on a
passage like this one brings new weather and different wind, so the new
headsail had to come down. Unlike all the fancy racing boats with loads of
efficient crew members dressed smartly in matching foul weather gear, who
literally jump at the chance to change a sail while underway, we dread it
(and rarely, if ever, do it). However, the time pressure we were
faced with demanded extraordinary measures, so extraordinary measures were
what we took. A full three hours after deciding to make the sail
change and put up the downwind rig, we were finished. Although not stellar
in the speedy category (those racing boat crew members would have
been completely appalled at our turtle-like pace, which by the way,
included time out for lunch), no calamities or even near-calamities
occurred. Something to celebrate, for sure. The three of us got the
small headsail down, flaked, bagged and put away with no trouble. The same
goes for putting the genoa up - no trouble. Even the two poles necessary
for the downwind rig were lifted, swung out and secured without anyone losing
their head (if control is lost while swinging the poles out sideways into
place as the boat rolls from side-to-side, you'd definitely want to
duck). And the crowning glory of the downwind rig, our lovely blue
ballooner (same size and shape as the genoa, but constructed of very light
material), was hoisted without a glitch. When the two of us are alone, and
haven't put up the downwind rig in a while, at least one calamity or
near-calamity takes place every time (for example: the sad day when
Don's $500 prescription sun glasses went overboard while hoisting the ballooner
on the way from St. Lucia to Panama in 2008). With John on board, the
whole process went smoother than it ever has, and we were rewarded with a
beautiful, moderately fast downwind sail throughout the night and this
morning. We've been patting ourselves on the back ever since.
Regrettably, all good things come to an end, and late this
morning the wind grew softer and shifted far enough south that it was no
longer behind us, making the downwind rig very unhappy. No worries.
The three of us took the ballooner and the poles down in a record 45
minutes. We are now motorsailing as fast as possible with the genoa, main
and mizzen up in hopes of reaching the western edge of the
Agulhas Current by 8pm tomorrow night.
Plan B.
Plan A as described above is good, but around here having
a Plan B is essential. It's possible the southerly wind change will
come sooner than what is currently forecast, and/or it's possible we will not be
able to go fast enough to reach the current by 8pm tomorrow night. In
either case, we will simply slow waaaay down, and wait outside of the
Agulhas Current until the southerly wind shifts more easterly.
If we do have to wait, the wind change to the east is expected to take only
about 12-15 hours. No biggie, we would simply sail slowly until
the wind changed, and then proceed across the current to Richard's Bay the
next day.
In the meantime, today's weather is perfect and even with the
engine moaning, the captain isn't (isn't moaning, I mean). All is well
on-board Harmonie.
More tomorrow on our progress.
Anne
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