d'Albora's Action Project: AUS 360 Blog Update
Presented by Pivotel
Afternoon All,
Things on-board have been variable to say the least. Yesterday I had rather mild conditions comparatively to the last few days however by sunset I was once again sailing in 28 knots and punching into the swell. It is quite a strange weather pattern that I have been sailing in down the west coast of Australia. Mainly because there are none of the tell tails that wind is due expect for what I can see in my weather reports from Bob and also what I can see in the grib files. Normally when you have an increase in winds you would have the barometer rise or fall more than 2 millibars in an hour and if their is a change in systems then the cloud formations would also change. For me out here their has been none of that happening. I keep having cumlis clouds or fair weather clouds and the barometer is still sitting high at 1018 mb. To be fair the barometer has changed but only a little going from 1018 t0 1019 and back again and that change has been slow. I am not sure the reason for the lack of tells with the weather, maybe it is simply confused at the moment as it defiantly cant seem to make up its mind as to how much wind to blow.
After the winds started to increase at sunset yesterday I went on deck again and put the first reef back in and a hr later I was back on deck partially furling away the J3 again. It seems to be my go to formation for sailing upwind in high winds and I was able to again get through another bouncy night at sea.
By sunrise the winds had eased again to below 20 knots but I was hesitant to shake the reef so I settled for un-furling the whole of the J3 and waiting an hour. When their was not really any winds blowing in over 20 knots I went on deck and shook out that reef and for the remainder of the day the winds have been any where between 11 knots to 25 knots making for an interesting day of going to slow or too fast... The wind direction has also been all over the place blowing from 140 all the way around to 200 Degrees but I am still sailing on a port tack however the winds seem to be settling in on the SW side so I will be looking at the potential to tack shortly so I keep sailing my best course to Cape Leeuwin. The cape at the moment is 271 nm away so I will hopefully be sailing past thursday and heading out to sea although the gribs files do show a rather large storm is going to be in the Australian Bight at that time so I will likely get some sailing in to remind me of my Circumnavigation around Antarctica. The whole big seas and broaching type of sailing.
Knowing that this light wind weather wasnt going to last I took advantage today and made myself a treat of pancakes for breakfast. It is nice sometime just to break up the menu and the repetition of the food options and I had very little else requiring my attention. I also spoke to my Sister Shelley today who had just been in to the hospital to visit Dad and well his heart is good, his liver and kidneys are improving every day but he still hasnt woken properly yet however the doctors are still saying it will take some time for the drugs to work their way out of his systems with his liver and kidneys still struggling but every one seems to be positive and say that he is improving even if it is slowly. More than anything I am just a bit frustrated that I cant be their to help my family with this but at least I can talk with them on the phone. So their is that.
Any way aside from that everything has been going rather well although the winds are now back up and the boat is rounding up so I will sign off here so that I can go and put a reef back in. Cheers!
Thanks to the following Sponsors for all their continued support: d’Albora Marinas, Pivotel B&G, Australian Geographic, Zhik , Park Fuels, Karver, 3M, White Bay 6 Marine Park, and Great Circle Life Raft
