The VS crew are preparing for our 2000nm trip to Perth  from Tasmania (it’s often forgotten that Australia is as big as the continental USA) through the much hyped Southern Ocean and across the Great Australian Bight.

The interesting picture below, from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, shows the whole Southern Ocean looking as if from directly above the South Pole a few days ago. This is what you call a weather map!

 

 

Australia is top right and Antarctica in the centre of course. You can see the Antarctic High over the continent, surrounded by a circle of Lows (depressions) going right round the globe in the Southern Ocean, mainly at this time of year in the Frightening Fifties and Screaming Sixties.  As in the Northern Hemisphere these Lows travel from west to east around the planet due to the rotation of the earth – but unlike in the north there is no landmass to inhibit their progress. The close packed isobars indicate strong winds.

North of these Lows is a concentric circle of Highs, also moving west-east; you can see one labelled H 1030 in the Australian Bight in the picture. At this time of year (summer) the Highs move further south, and this is what is going to get us to Perth (we hope). The idea is that winds circulate anticlockwise round a High down here, so if we time it right we should be able to catch a ride on a southerly wind leaving Tasmania as a High approaches from the west, then get north of it and ride the wind as it turns to the east as the High passes to the south of us.

That’s the theory, anyway. The trick is planning, and patience. Leaving to a schedule fixed in advance is a truly bad idea anywhere, but especially round here. As I write, the winds look good for a departure from Hobart on Monday next, then a day at anchor in Recherche Bay, the southernmost refuge in Tasmania, then setting off for South Australia on Wednesday. But it’s early days yet – the forecast will probably change by the time we get to Recherche. If so, we wait; as you can see from the chart above we shouldn’t have to wait long to hitch a ride on the next High – provided it choses to go far enough south.

Watch this space!