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Starblazer - Finish Line Drama



Email lost in transit, so re-sent.

First the good news, we crossed the finish line today at 13h 16” 49’ but we
have another night at sea before we reach Mackay. The sailing has been
tremendous for the most part. The rapid progress from Saturday to Sunday
(185 nM) continued right up until the early hours of this morning,
Wednesday. Sunday to Monday 178 nM, Monday to Tuesday 171nM but Tuesday to
Wednesday we only covered 162 nM, not slow but this was only achieved by
motoring for 1 ½ hours because the wind dropped to 10 knots and we were
eager to reach the Hydrographers Passage with at least some of the flood
tide remaining.

Monday night threw up a challenge, a ridge of high pressure from Eastern
Australia east to New Caledonia was accompanied by a trough from NE
Australia towards the Solomons, the pressure gradient between the two was
expected to bring us winds of 30 knots with higher gusts. The weather
lived up to our expectations, a prolonged gust of 37 knots had John rapidly
rolling away a lot of the already reefed genoa. In daylight I was amused to
see a tiny triangle of headsail, far smaller than our storm staysail, I’m
really not sure if it added to our speed at all. The weather system also
promised rain, we got wet on and off for about 36 hours. The cockpit has
damp cushions spread out and the saloon has all the oilies hanging.

Another challenge we faced on Tuesday morning was the shipping lane running
north/south. Overnight we met a couple of ships heading to New Zealand, we
spoke to them on the VHF, both altered course slightly, both had seen our
AIS. From about 0730 they started coming in pairs, the first 2 or 3 safely
passed ahead with no worries, just before the SSB net at 0900 things started
to look bad. Two ships were steaming south, level with each other about a
mile apart and the closest one to us was predicted to miss us by about ¾
mile. Now add a Chinese container ship into the mix, heading north,
between us and the other two ships. John called him up, said he had a
problem as it looked as though he needed to alter course. Xin Zhan, or
something like that, called up one of the ships and agreed to alter course
to starboard, to pass port to port. So far, so good but that put us
directly in his path. John called him up again, he claimed he couldn’t see
us on radar or AIS. In the end John did a swift 90 degree course alteration
to port to run parallel with him but in the opposite direction. Yes we
missed each other but it was unnecessary as John called him when he was 10
miles away, plenty of time to take avoiding action. (John: Yes, I know that
a course change to starboard is the normal action but that would have meant
gybing, we had a preventer on the boom and we needed to act quickly. We
were the stand on vessel, sailing and coming from his starboard side.)

Until Monday evening we had two constant AIS targets, Firefly about 10 miles
ahead and Ayama the same distance behind. By the next morning Firefly had
disappeared ahead but Ayama slowly caught us up. The drama on the finish
line was that we were in a motorboat race with Ayama, when the wind gave us
no help they overtook us and crossed the line less than 30 seconds ahead of
us, not bad for a 1,051 mile leg. If we have to replace the engine, should
it be bigger?

The Hydrographers Passage is a zigzag course between reefs which protect the
Australian coast. The current, particularly at the sea end, can be quite
strong with counter winds producing a nasty chop, just like in the Solent.
This was why we wanted to enter with at least some of the flood tide left.
Further in the current slackens so it won’t be so difficult to make headway.
The wind has dropped still further to 5 knots. The faster boats which
arrived yesterday evening and overnight suffered badly trying to make
progress against a 20 knot wind and an ebbing tide.

I am pleased to announce that the food mountain has been significantly
reduced.

Sunday’s dinner was pork chops, mash and veg followed by fresh pineapple.

Monday’s lunch was egg, bacon and sausages, dinner was spaghetti Bolognese
cooked by John who lamented the lack of carrots.

Tuesday morning was cold and wet so we had the last two instant porridge
cups, lunch was a large Bratwurst sausage in a wrap with fried onions,
tomatoes and mushrooms, dinner was similar to Sunday’s without the
pineapple.

Today we finished the small sausages, bacon and 2 of the remaining 3 eggs
for breakfast, lunch was sliced ham in a wrap with coleslaw using the last
of the mayonnaise (another forbidden item) and most of the cabbage (also
forbidden.)

Tonight we celebrate the last night at sea so we’ll have steak, chips and
ratatouille followed by a pineapple upside down cake! That takes care of
the last of the potatoes, eggs and pineapple.

Tomorrow I’ll let you know what we have managed to stuff into ourselves
before biosecurity arrives. I’ll also list what had to be confiscated,
hopefully nothing I hadn’t thought of but I’ll just have to wait and see.
My past three weeks of eating carefully have been ruined!

Joyce

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