Not So Great Sailing
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Noon Position: 34 27.6 S 151 06.7
E The last 24 hours have not been anywhere near as pleasant as the previous day's sailing. At 1500 yesterday, the wind backed into the SE, a beam reach, so it was down with the spinnaker and up with the jib. We continued beam reaching making good about four knots for a couple of hours until we were approaching St Georges Head. Here the great promontory of land that surrounds Jervis Bay thrusts out into the Tasman Sea and if there is any current running it invariably speeds up as it has to round this chunk of Australia. As we approached the promontory, our speed over the ground fell down to two and half knots, so I rolled up the jib and set the code zero. Our speed jumped back up to four knots, though we were doing close to six through the water. And thus began a long battle to get past Beecroft Peninsular. Despite a steady force three to four breeze and the code zero, we were only making good two to three knots and it took seven hours to eventually crawl past Little Beecroft Head and out for the fast running East Australia Current. This was just after midnight and from here the wind faded to almost nothing as we found ourselves in a trough running up the coast. It was a long night with numerous sail changes, patches of drizzle and the odd gust as rain clouds passed over. The seas were lumpy, probably because of the effects of the current, so when there was no wind Sylph rolled and pitched making sleep impossible. We resorted to the motor a couple of times, mainly to make the motion more tolerable, however this also meant no sleep due to the noise of the engine (and if I do fall asleep, I am unlikely to hear any alarms above the engine noise, so I stay awake when the engine is running). Come dawn a light breeze returned and while going was slow there was at least enough wind to keep the sails full and Sylph moving, not entirely in the right direction but at least things were quiet enough that I could snatch a bit of sleep. Now the wind has veered into the north, a headwind, but at least it keeps us moving. The wind is forecast to freshen further from the NE this afternoon so we will be working our way to windward for the rest of the day. Hopefully if we stay close to the coast we will avoid the worst of the current. Come midnight the wind is expected to back into the west, making for a relatively fast broad reach up the coast which should take us the rest of the way to Port Jackson. Despite the trying conditions we have made satisfactory progress, 70 miles towards our destination. We only have forty miles to go to Port Jackson and I reckon that if all goes according to plan then we should be entering Sydney Harbour by dawn tomorrow All is well. |