The 1,000nm passage across The Great Australian Bight from Albany to Port Lincoln has been an epic ocean crossing so far. With 800nm complete and 260nm to go, we have followed the more southern PredictWind route that was advised and its kept us in the breeze, with most of it from behind. We had to dive 100nm further south of the rhumb line and 260nm south of the coast, to avoid a big, blue, becalmed hole, that would have added 4 days of motoring and an extra 1,000 litres of diesel consumption.

*Silver Fern back on the same latitude as Salt Lines after splitting paths on Day 2*

Salt Lines stayed 60nm north of us and found themselves in less breeze for a few hours, before it filled in again. We are both sailing the best downwind angles we can, for comfort and speed and will meet up again on arrival in Port Lincoln.

*Ken’s monster fish - a delicious Yellowfin Tuna*

Our circumnavigator Ken, has been masterful with his fishing once again, landing a really big yellowfin tuna, that produced three, well endowed, tuna meals. As the seas and winds built to 3-4m yesterday, there was a combination of crashing noises in the galley as plastic plates slid off the bench and tumbled to the floor. The prized Nespresso machine also took a tumble, but stayed plugged and dangling 50cm above the floor by its chord, after it had cartwheeled off the bench. It was a lucky save and a lesson for the crew to put things away when not in use.

We have sailed for most of the latter part of the leg, other than running the engine once daily to charge batteries, make water and chill down the refrigeration. We had been running on full mainsail and jib by the time we were into day two, after departing Albany. We had a good run in the building breeze and carried the full main until we started getting 24 knots of breeze and were on the edge of being over powered. With 30 knots ahead of us last night, we went straight to two reefs and a full jib, so were set up well for heavy downwind running. The full jib moves the centre of pressure forward (like a front wheel drive car) and making it easier on the rudder (when combined with the half sized mainsail).

It served us well overnight as the breeze steadily built to 31 knots. With a top speed of 16.9 knots for the day, off the back of surfing one of many waves, we’ve just had a good 202nm run in 24 hours. The wind is down to the low 20’s again tonight and we should be able to shake out the 2nd reef sometime after midnight.

My new salt water pump for my generator took 24 hours to get from Auckland to Melbourne and then another 13 days for Australia Post to get it to Perth (by urgent courier). Fedex and DHL deliver every time, but anything with Australia post is so unreliable. I had already departed Perth before it arrived, so my next plan was to courier it to Port Lincoln. Thats a 6-day minimum by courier, so we will be gone before it gets there. It’s now on its way from Perth to the Gold Coast, so I can pick it up when home instead and fit it. Managing spare parts is a big challenge for us. We carry a lot of parts onboard, but there are always new parts requiring sourcing from all over Australia and New Zealand and with our yachts at sea so much, it’s challenging lining up the ducks.

I was up at 3am this morning to watch the nail-biting quarter final clash between Ireland and the All Blacks. In a game either team could have won, it was a relief to see the All Blacks win by 4 points. The heavy weather sailing of the last few days has taken a toll on deck, with a new Genoa block (rated to 8 tons) breaking under load when it appeared to get twisted somehow. Later today we looked up to see a 50cm long tear in the leech (back edge) of the jib. Neither are show stoppers, but we had to re-run the jib sheets to work around the problem.

There are large loads on these boats in 25-30 knot winds and it’s why we are so careful with making sure body parts stay out of the way. On the current forecast, we should be in Port Lincoln, South Australia in the early hours of the 17th of October.

Our new skipper, Sharon Ferris-Choat flies from Keri Keri to Auckland, New Zealand and onto Sydney, Adelaide and Port Lincoln to meet us on arrival. Sharon takes over from me for the balance of the Australian Circumnavigation, so I can head home for an overdue break with my wife Danielle and my family.

Then I’ll head to Nelson, New Zealand later in the month to take our new yacht Te Kaihopara from Nelson to Picton, following the 7-month rewire and refit for unlimited survey approval, before heading to Auckland ready to commence commercial operations.

David

Join the crew for a sailing adventure

End of Bight in Sight

Start of Leg 5

Go Hard or Go Home