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American Spirit II - Day 321; Sailing to Port Elizabeth in the Aghulas Current with a 4.7 Knot Current; Saturday, November 22, 2014



Relieved Jeanine at 6:00 AM. The wind was 3/5 knots and we were moving at 7.4 knots thru the water and 9.3 knots over the land. Low overcast clouds. The shoreline was visible to starboard, 13 miles away. Cliffs or sand dunes. Swells on the port bow. Port Elizabeth is 197 miles away with an ETA of 21 1/2 hours at current speed.

At 7:50 AM the sun is shining and the sky is half white clouds and half blue sky. The swells are large, 10-12 feet and really broad. We sail up and then down the large swells. A lot of motion on the boat. The wind is still 3/5 knots and we're moving at 7.1 knots thru the water and 9.5 knots over the land.

Ghost hosts the 9:00 AM net. Sweet Pearl, Adela, Nexus and Saphir are on the net with us. Nexus and Ghost say they're trying for Port Elizabeth. Someone says Folie a Deux is heading for Durban. Saphir is 20 miles behind us.

Breakfast at 9:30 AM is bacon, eggs, chilled pear halves and bread. Plus 1 left over chicken leg for Jeanine from dinner last night.

We fuel the boat at 11:00 AM, putting in 4 jerry cans or 20 gallons. Due to the large swells and confused seas doing it is not easy.

Our noon position is 33 degrees, 18 minutes South; 27 degrees, 59 minutes East; and we're 146 miles from Port Elizabeth. We traveled 207 miles since noon yesterday. I slowed the RPM's from 2000 to 1600 and our speed fell from 10.0 knots to 9.3. I then rolled out more main and our speed increased back up to 10 knots again.

I napped at 1:00 PM and Joel did the same an hour later, with Jeanine manning the cockpit.

At 2:15 PM I turned the engine off and our speed dropped from 10.3 knots to 9.5 knots. The wind turbine wasn't turning, don't know why.

At 2:58 PM the wind is 19/20 knots and we're moving at 5.9 knots thru the water and 9.9 knots over the land. A four knot current. We have a full main out and are 15 miles off shore. I put one reef in mainsail at 3:08 PM to slow the boat down. We'd like to enter Port Elizabeth harbor at or after sunrise at 5:00 AM. Our speed dropped to 8.8 knots. The seas are very confused and big, so I'm actually a little sea sick. But not enough to lose my lunch, so to speak. Once I get some food in my stomach (dinner) I'll feel better. That may sound counterintuitive, but it works for me.

Xavier from Lluiton calls at 4:15 PM, asking if we had the latest weather forecast. We pass on what we know; that a southwest wind of 20 knots is forecast for Monday 8:00 AM. A wind like that at 20 knots from the southwest would create very large waves in the Aghulas Current which is running from the northeast because the wind would be directly opposite the current, a condition which can create 'abnormal waves,' as they say in my pilot books and on the paper chart we're using. The current is now 4.7 knots and we're 13 miles off shore; 100 miles from Port Elizabeth.

I listen to the Peri-Peri net at 5:00 PM and couldn't hear anything from net host Roy Cook on the net. I was able to talk to Civetta II and Saphir, though.

Dinner at 5:30 PM is freeze dried Mexican Style Rice with Chicken; butter beans; and chilled pear halves.

Ghost hosts the 6:00 PM net and confirms that they and Alpheratz are trying for Port Elizabeth and should arrive after sunset on Sunday.

At 7:05 PM I power up the SSB radio and send a log and some emails. I connect with a receiving station in South Africa 374 miles away at a heading of 1 degree. The send is at 2800 bytes per minute and the receive is 1400. I'm done by 7:12 PM. Quick.

At 7:20 PM we jibe the boat from port to starboard tack, heading in more to shore. This will take us out of the heart of the current, slowing down our approach to Port Elizabeth so we hopefully can enter in daylight. A little while later while Joel is in the cockpit he says that the wind picked up to 25 knots for 20 minutes or so and the waves got really big, threatening to poop us. Then the wind died down again and the large wave threat disappeared.

At 9:00 PM the wind is 17 knots and we're moving at 4.5 knots thru the water and 6.6 knots over the land.

At 11:37 PM a cargo ship named the Maersk Labrea, 984 feet long, was on a collision course with us and I altered course 5 degrees to starboard to miss them. The CPA (Closest Point of Approach) was 700 feet before I did that. When the ship finally passed port to port at .7 of a mile, it filled up the entire left side of my viewing field. The ship was that big. One of the things we do when we see a ship on our chart plotter is to click on the ship's icon, then I press a button that allows me to put a vector or dotted line on the icon that shoots out in front of the ship. If that dotted line crosses our boat icon you can easily see that a collision is coming unless a course or courses are altered.

At 11:40 PM I turned the engine back on as the wind had dropped to 12 knots and our speed had dropped to 3.7 knots. At 2000 RPM's our speed increased back up to 7.2 knots thru the water and 7.6 knots over the land.

Jeanine got up at midnight, but I decided to stay on watch until Joel got up at 3:00 AM due to our passing close by Bird Island, a hazard due to its extensive reef system; the possibility that we'd have to jibe the boat due to the wind direction; not being northeast enough; and because of all the ship traffic we were having.

Brian Fox



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