From: OmanTri
To: update
Subject: another day of waiting
Date: 26/01/2009 02:34:38


We are continuing to sail to the East – and are currently around 240nm SW
of Cape Leeuwin – the western most part of Australia, and we continue to
wait for the cold front – a change in the weather that wiill have us sailing
S and SE rather than E. As the front arrives we can expect stronger winds –
and less stable air – gusts which change in speed and also a little in
direction. It’s important to get South as at some point we have to get to at
least 44S to get around Tasmainia, and more importantly for the next few
days to avoid some large calm patches of High pressure in the Great
Australia Bight – the large indentation in Australia’s south coast. But for
now as the waiting continues for that change we have the gennaker and full
mainsail flying and sailing at around 17 kts boatspeed, it’s clear blue
skies to our NE and to our SW we can see the start of the cloud that signals
the approaching front. we can imagine to feel it’s effects in the next 6
hours. The tempreture on deck is a lovely 22degrees, it’s daylight now of
course, but overnight there was a slight nip in the air. This is not a
strong front by Southern Ocean standards, but it will be a powerful reminder
that sailing in great conditions doesn’t last for ever. After the front the
next 24hrs should be windy reaching S and SE before having some light
patches on tuesday to thursday befor we can take off again heading for New
Zealand.

These light patches are a blessing for us as last night whilst sailing along
at around 20 kts we hit something – we have no idea what – but can imagine
something soft(ish) there as a double bang , B-Bang, and a jolt on the
rudders. With the search light on to the rudder we could see the bottom
1/3rd was missing. What ever we hit must have come off pretty badly, i’m
sorry to say – but we don’t seem to have done any hull damage which is
good. We gybed so that it was the windward rudder for an inspection, before
gybing back and checking control – whilst heavy it’s managable so we decided
not to risk people on the float in the night – better in the day light and
in calmer conditions

We have a spare rudder onboard, so when the winds lighten and seas a calmer
we’ll exchange them and see the real extent of the damage to the blade. (
hopefully sometime before sunset on Tuesday for us – could be around 1500
hrs tuesday when it will be daylight

Everything else onboard is going ok for now everyone getting sleep whilst
the motion is not to bad.
and the weather heading to New Zealand looks fairly good – we’ll have some
work to do on tuesday wednesdy and thursday to get through some light
variable conditions to get south but apart from that the run to NZL could be
a good one.

A friend of mine has emailed the following questions which are pretty good
ones..


1. what was the first thing you have managed to eat from the sea and how you
cooked it?
err… nothing yet – Theirry’s fishing exploits proved unsuccessful, and we
have thrown any live flying fish back to the sea – they smell far too bad to
cook – we are not that desparate yet. But in our dreams we have managed to
catch and fillet some Sea Bass, and cooked it simply in butter……..

2. A list of anything in the water which shouldn’t be there i.e. drinks can

We have been sailing through very clean sea we did get a plastic bag or
piece of plastic on the main rudder the other day, but on the whole we have
been impressed by the lack of ‘man’s junk’ floating around the ocean. We
were dispointed not to see much wildlife but now that we have hit something
with the rudder I think we’d better be careful what we wish for!

3. And a method of accutately weighing yourselves???

nope not found one yet….anyone got any ideas?