Tuesday 11.30pm Bright, bright moon lighting up the rough seas! Frequently getting seas washing over the decks - beam seas make fr a rough motion. We're making 7.7kt, often 8kt, even though I just reduced the genoa some more. Wind seems quite strong - maybe 20kt? - so furled it in to the 2nd reef mark. Nice to be making good speed. Time to get to my bunk for some sleep.
Wednesday 5:10am Day is dawning - quite light now, although sun not quite up yet. Pretty rough seas, with wind well over 20kt from N-NNW - being thrown around a lot, making around 7kt. Best place to be is in my bunk!
Just finished with a lot of radio contacts - nice to hear a lot of familiar ones in there - including Newfoundland and Ottowa, along with Rusty, W6OAT, coming through from Seattle, and a few S.American stations.
8:45am Up to post position and weather reports - strong conditions.. Adjusted Fred and reduced genoa.
10am Raining again - sky has been covered with rainclouds all morning and wind is 25kt or more... Reduced genoa some more... Still making 6-7kt, more in gusts.
11:15 am Suddenly, has calmed down - no more 'bucking bronco' motion...! Noise of wind in rigging has disappeared... 30kt wind has just vanished... Wind direction is still from N - hasn't switched to SW yet.... in fact, has veered to NNE just now. More rain. Time for a snooze - feeling I need one - very disturbed overnight sleep.
11:50am No snooze yet! That was a lull... but 30kt wind has lessened to mid-20s. Still raining and speed back up to 6-7kt. Will adjust Fred and then get to my bunk..
2:30pm Back down below, drying off after unfurling genoa in the rain. The wind is clearly dying down a lot now. To begin with, unfurling some of the genoa resulted in us making 6kt fom 5kt but now, not long after, we're struggling to make 4.5kt with full genoa. We're on a broad reach, heading SE still and the wind is from N-NNW. Magnetic variation is now 40 degrees W - the instruments still don't accept that such a large value can exist - 'invalid data' message still being displayed!
3:20pm Back down - had to get my wet jacket back on and go up again to adjust Fred - we were heading well off course with a wind shift. Rain has stopped but everything very wet. Making better speed. Wind keeps shifting so having to adjust Fred quite often - will keep wet gear on for time being! Time for some food....
5pm Wind increased again a while ago - we're back into 'bucking bronco' mode... Furled in genoa a bit to reduce heeling. Making around 6 kt.
Sea temperature dropped down to 18C now - air temperature similar - cooled down with rain. Steel grey solid cloud to S, broken light grey clouds to N with small patches of blue - we're skirting the edge of the bank of dark rain cloud, heading E now.
Still trying to get to some food - spent quite a time up on deck, trimming, furling in, adjusting Fred or just watching the scene around... seas, clouds, birds, our motion...
Yellow-nosed albatross came very close for quite a time earlier - very inquisitive. Was worried it might get too close to wind generator, it was so close off our stern, looking at me. No camera to hand for a close up shot - pity!
7pm Getting dark- sunset was half an hour ago. Need to adjust our course again - so many times over the day - the wind has really been shifting around a lot - cloudy conditions probably the reason why. Furled in more genoa - wind had strengthened, seas were rougher and we were headed more into them. Will have to gybe sometime soon so not a bad thing to have less sail. Would prefer not to have to do it in darkness but no choice.
1900GMT (=2100LT) - end of Day 140. We made 148 n.ml. DMG over the 24 hr period, measured in a straight line between the two 1900 GMT positions.
Total distance covered from Victoria, B.C., to end of Day 140 (by daily DMGs): 13,208 n.ml.
Distances (at 1900GMT): Cape Leeuwin LH (SW Australia): 3717 n.ml. to ENE; SE Cape of Tasmania LH: 4544 n.ml. to ESE; Cape Agulhas LH (S.Africa): 771 n.ml. to N; Cape Town Hbr entrance: 866 n.ml. to N.
Position & weather report, for 1900 GMT, posted to www.Winlink.org and www.Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign KC2IOV):
TIME: 2019/02/20 19:00GMT LATITUDE: 41-20.23S LONGITUDE: 034-05.13E COURSE: 079T SPEED: 6.3kt
WIND_SPEED: 20kt WIND_DIR: N SWELL_DIR: N SWELL_HT: 3.0m CLOUDS: 100%
BARO: 1007.2hPa TREND: 0 AIR_TEMP: 18.0C SEA_TEMP: 19.0C
COMMENT: Rough seas all day Wind up again... Frequent rain;