Our third day has been somewhat dominated by the weather. We had been expecting some sort of front to come over but it came upon us much earlier than we anticipated. Suspecting a line of clouds ahead of us I checked the radar to confirm a wall of rain ahead. We put two reefs into the main and head sail and plunged in. The winds increased to about 30 knots and the cold rain fell. The winds shifted well into the NW which was what we had expected.
This didn’t last long as suddenly the wind dropped to about 8 knots. I was just figuring out what best to do when they resumed at 25 knots from the south and stayed there. We quickly tacked and kept moving now off course. Sailing close to the wind with confused and changing seas was no fun. Nor were we heading in the right direction. All my planning to head north to get a better heading in the NW wind had now set us too far north to reach Beveridge Reef on a single tack. I knew the southerlies were coming but the GRIBs suggested we’d be on our anchor before that happened. It might have been ok except for a northerly current adding another 30 degrees to our course over ground.
Our hope was to to plod on regardless hoping the easterly trade winds would assert themselves and bring our course further south. Plan B was to abandon hope of reaching Beveridge Reef and go straight to Niue.
The winds shifted a little throughout the night leaving us about 10nm to make into wind by the time my morning shift started. With the reef seeming to calm the seas and lessen the current I began tacking in. And that is where we are – inching our way towards the reef. With our clocks set back an hour in line with Niue we should be in around 10am which is about right for the light.
Leave a Reply