Thursday, August 21, 2008

Lethargic sailing

The wind continues to tease us, one moment strengthening and momentarily increasing the boat speed above 4 knots, only to quickly ease and continue our wallowing at 2-3 knots. The good news is that the direction is constant; we've escaped the land/sea- breezes of Darwin for a weak SE trade.

Overnight the wind died completely and we motored until the early hours, overtaking Lasse just before midnight. I thought I'd fixed the electronic autopilot in Darwin, but sadly not. I only use the autopilot when there is no wind for the wind-steering and we're under motor. With no automatic steering, we had to manually steer through the night; huge relief when the wind arrived around 4am and it was possible to go to the toilet without the boat turning back towards Darwin.

The forecast is showing more wind towards the end of the week, so hopefully we'll escape the lethargic conditions, before they overcome the crew.

Caught the first fish of the trip last night - a three meal tuna. We'll need to focus to finish the tuna and lamb before they go off.

Position @ 07:00 (GMT+9.30): S11deg 40.5' E128deg 03.6'
Distance to waypoint (channel between Roti and West Timor): 286
Daily run: 93

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