OK, so we've missed telling you about our uneventful trip from Eden to Bermagui, and the nice time we had in Bermagui, but this is hot off the press, so here it is...
We had a long, slow, frustrating, and somewhat stressful day today... and learned exactly why "gentlemen don't go to windward"...
The Plan :
Having spent several lovely days tied up at the new floating marina in Bermagui (more on that in another post) and with no sign of any southerly weather in the forecast, we decided we'd have a crack at sailing to windward (a first for us on this trip). The forecast was 15-20 knot NE and we had 40 Nm to get to Batemans Bay, largely on a bearing of 008T. Ok, a few tacks would be necessary, but how bad could it be...?
The Complications :
1. The wind started very light and changeable. 45 degree wind shifts occurred quite frequently. Makes it hard to find a groove.
2. The wind, when it came in, was not NE as advertised, but NNE and smack on the nose.
3. There was a 1-1.5 knot current (the East Australia Current) flowing straight down the coast. It went REALLY close inshore, like into about the 30m depth contour. There were places where we couldn't avoid it without ending up in the surf. This makes tacking out from shore REALLY painful.
4. The water pump impeller shat itself while we were motor sailing close to shore and we were alerted by the temperature alarm (see photo). We shut the engine down immediately, but still it had overheated - this is the problem of relying on a temperature alarm, a low flow alarm is a much better idea, but that is still on my to-do list. I had a spare handy and changed it in maybe 5 mins, however the engine was difficult to start when hot. It did start eventually, and cooled down nicely, but that may not be the end of the story as it stalled twice while we were anchoring (running at low revs and using the anchor winch) it has never done that before.
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| Not the way we like our water pump impellers. Yes, all of the big bits are there. |
So, the day was spent motor sailing to windward and we were feeling really happy if we could get our VMG above 4 knots.
The Result :
So, in the end we haven't made it to Batemans Bay. We thought that if we continued we would arrive in the dark - but it now seems we were being overly pessimistic. Probably due to a failure to correct the sunset time for daylight savings in the NSW tide book (the tides are in daylight time, but the sunset times are not - grrrr!). So we have stopped and anchored off Barlings beach about 10 miles short of our destination (we would have missed the tide for crossing the bar).
This anchorage is an open roadstead anchorage and is described in our book (Lucas, p48) as "good holding and good shelter from N winds and the surge is tolerable". So far it seems to be living up to this. On the positive side, the motion from the swell should rock us to sleep nicely.
I've turned on my mobile phone AIS reporting so you should now be able to see where we are.
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| Just in case you can't be bothered looking on Marine Traffic |
The plan is now to leave here at 5 am to hopefully catch a 7 am tide at the bar in Batemans Bay - if we can do 5 knots. We're expecting there should be less wind in the morning. Hopefully engine starts...
A Few Summary Statistics for those who like numbers:
1. We had planned to travel a route of 44 Nm to Batemans Bay
2. At the end of the day our log said we had traveled 47 Nm through the water (in 8 hours that is an average boat speed of 5.8 knots. Not too bad for motor sailing to windward in a lumpy sea).
3. But our GPS says we have only traveled 44 Nm over the ground (we pushed against 3 "miles of current"). Average SOG 5.5 knots, so maybe that current wasn't as bad as I thought.
4. And we only actually progressed 36 Nm from where we started (as the crow flies, or the boat sails DOWNWIND). Resulting in an average VMG of 4.5 knots, which isn't that bad I suppose, but it sure feels like a hard won 36 Nm!
That is why gentlemen (and sensible families) don't go to windward...
Giles
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