Marshalls to Alaska Day 17: Gale Avoidance Tactics

Greetings,

When we look at our Predictwind software, it shows different colours for different wind strengths. In simple terms, green is good, red is windy, and black is bad. At one point, it looked like someone spilled a bottle of black ink on our rhumb line for Sunday. We set off on a NE course yesterday (Friday) to keep ourselves to the south of this mess, and subsequently after discussion with our weather router we decided to head due east instead, so we have been galloping along for most of the day at about 7-8 kts. It isn't doing much for our miles to go countdown, but we are glad to put some distance between ourselves and this gale.

The Predictwind Offshore software and the Iridium Go make planning so much easier as it shows not just the that weather is forecast by four different models but can predict where we will be based on each model (in sailing this is called "routing" [not that kind rooting you Australians]). In this example you can follow the green line - the GFS forecast - to see we would get some unpleasant weather by Wednesday.

In this case we have used a feature in Predictwind Offshore to provide guidance to the routing software to avoid winds and seas over a certain amount.  In this run of the software it has steered us on a more easterly course (follow the green line).  In reality we took a more conservative course and went almost due east to avoid the leftover swell before turning back towards Dutch Harbor.

We spent the morning stowing below decks and lashing on the upper decks. We made sure that the batteries were full, the water tanks were full, easy-to-eat food was prepared, foul weather clothing was at the ready, and engine and rig checks were completed. We are as ready as we can be for the weather to come, the worst of which we hope to have mitigated with our diversion to the East. We are still almost 200 nm to the west of our original rhumb line, so it is no hardship to have added some easting onto our track.

The weather fax from the Ocean Prediction Centre showing the gale.  To the south of it there is the usual weather fronts which mean, especially for the cold front (the line the pointy bits), gustiness usually in excess of what is shown by the GRIBS.

Before the wind picked up this afternoon, we had been motoring for about 18 hours. All the thermostats in the boat were set artificially high to keep our air units blasting and as much of the engine heat as we could in the boat. It was surreal to walk around in bare feet and tank tops downstairs while the others were huddled under blankets in the cockpit, but it was nice to give the boat a bit of an warm soak before we so another long stretch of sailing in dropping temperatures.

By the time I went off-watch after lunch, we were comfortably close reaching in 10-12 kts and a still-calm sea. I started playing "Who am I" as a diversion with Benjamin, and after the big kids joined in and I slipped away to the aft cabin, I could hear them still at it quite some time later, with great gales of laughter as they tried to pick the most obscure characters they could think of from the movies and cartoons they have seen. Having three kids in a confined space like this can be intense at times, but the moments of camaraderie and laughter certainly balance them out!

On his watch, Max had a small fleet of AIS fishing targets within range. This time it looked like a big boat, a couple of smaller boats, and some nets. They weren't nearly as close as the big tanker we passed on our 2nd or 3rd night at sea that came within two miles of us, enabling Max to hear their engines across the water! We like it better when the only evidence of traffic is our AIS display, but the ships are far enough that we can't see them on the horizon.

We continue to have albatrosses fishing near the boat, and for the third evening in a row a group of dolphins showed up for a brief "Hello" as I was preparing dinner. On a day when we had calmer seas, one of the birds seemed to be flying ahead of us, stopping to sit in the water and watch us go by, and then flying ahead to repeat the parade. He seemed quite curious about us. Max had an even closer wildlife encounter this morning when he found a little bird in the cockpit. We think it flew in the open side of our rain enclosure, but then couldn't get out the other side. He gently set it on the back deck, and it seems to have gone on its way again.

The ever impressive albatross.

Numbers always appeal to me and catch my eye. Tonight's observation was that we passed 1043 nm to go when the time on the clock was 10:43 (Ok, it was 2243 on the display, but I used my imagination!) I think that the odds of seeing the time of day match the nm to go are quite slim for the rest of the trip.

By the time I handed over the watch at 3am, the seas had built to about 2m with a short period and the winds had picked up to just over 20 kts. We will be earning our milestone chips for the last 1000 nm!

Love to all
Elizabeth
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At 2019-07-01 4:08 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 39°35.78'N 178°25.15'E

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