We’re finally into the Northeast trade winds, emerging from the core of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) around 2230 ships’ time. The transition was interesting, as we were tortured with South Southeast winds that weren’t forecast and didn’t really make any sense, until finally the wind came up to Southeast, then East (oooooooh we’re getting close) to suddenly a rapid change over just a few minutes to about 60 degrees true. And not only the rapid direction change, but wind velocity went from around 12 knots to 18 knots in a very short time. Wham!
Now we’re moving along at more like 8 – 9 knots speed over ground with true wind at 18 and apparent wind at 20. We’re just fine with reef #1 in, but I’m betting that when Isabel comes on watch she’s going to want me to help her put in reef #2. The wind is up and down a bit and there are still no signs of squalls on the radar. Ride quality is a bit rough and sporty. On its own the speed is fine, but it’s good we’re sleeping off watch in the starboard aft cabin,”le cave” as we call it. It’s our best sea berth and it’s quick to the cockpit if whoever’s on watch hollers for help.
The forecast shows the true wind in the 20’s for a day or so, coming around as high as about 40 degrees true, so it’s going to be a sporty ride for a while and a little rougher than we’d hoped for. To compensate we’re pushing North a bit more than just trying to lay the rhumb line course so that we will have margin to fall off a bit when the wind pinches up. True wind at 40 degrees won’t affect the sailing, just the ride as we’ll be aiming around 307 true for Hilo and that’ll put the true wind just barely aft of the beam.
There are still some pretty serious rain cells on the ECMWF weather model (big orange blobs) between our position and about 10 degrees North. The GFS model shows rain as well, but light and widespread rather than the concentrated cells depicted on the ECMWF. I’ve tweaked our next waypoint to 10 deg N, 141 deg W, a 330 true bearing from our current position. To maintain sail trim (yes, I’m lazy) the autopilot is steering us to 65 degrees apparent wind, which has us slightly high on the course line to the waypoint. That’s fine since the faster we get North, the faster we get away from all that rain activity.
Well, it’s what we’ve got so we’ll work with it.
Maybe I’ll throw that reef in before Isabel comes on watch. I want to get some sleep too!
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