As we start the day the winds have died and the seas are calm. According to the weather maps sometime in the early morning the winds should shift around to the SW. When that happens we will be able to put the boat on a direct course for the North Cape of New Zealand. As I said in one of my earlier reports it takes about 3 days to adjust to the boat at sea. The first day out it is difficult to get to sleep so Barbara and I both sit in the cockpit and talk till almost 11. That gets us out of sync with our watch schedule. So for tonight we just go with when you get tired bring the other person on deck. Not much of a schedule but it will get us through the night.
At about 3 am without turning the boat the wind shifts to the SW and the sails flop over to a starboard tack. I don't think I have ever been on a boat when we changed tack without touching a line. I know some of you out there have no idea what I'm talking about but take my word it's pretty cool.
After the wind shift the winds pick up and we are able to turn the motor off and just use the sails. You would think being in the open ocean and the South Pacific just using the sails for power would be pretty common. That is not the case and especially this year. I would say that during our passages about 40% of the time we use motor only, about 40% with motor and sail and just 20% with sail only. When we are able to just sail it is real special. This was one of those days. From about 10AM till 7PM we had a great sailing day. Seas were calm, the wind was between 15-20 kts and the wind was coming at us from a right angle to the boat or what we call beam reach. This boat can really fly when it gets those conditions. A fun time was had by all.
Mechanically speaking no new issues to report. We are currently 170 miles NW of North Cape New Zealand (32 48 S,170 29 E). Our ETA into Opua is Thursday, Nov 5th sometime before noon. I am happy to report all is well aboard Destiny. This is Destiny clear and standing by on 1-6.
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1 comment:
Enjoy your postings. Glad to hear you enjoyed Norfolk Island. And especially glad to hear you have had such a good passage to NZ.
Bill's first thought on your generator being down is that possibly it was related to the earlier fuel leak and needs bleeding. But I'm sure that if that were possibly the cause you would have already tried that remedy. Hope it is an easy fix once you get to port.
Enjoy NZ!
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