Frontal Weather
25 December 2017 | 1788 Miles to Cape Horn
6:00pm Monday 25th December 2017 ( UTC-3 ) I first became acquainted with PredictWind when I accompanied Lex and Joanne Sylvester on their yacht Trompantana on a voyage from Scarborough, Brisbane to Sydney. The PredictWind gave good weather but what particularly impressed me was when Joanne got out her laptop and called a fresh Southerly change just off Newcastle which allowed a good positioning and preparedness. The strength,direction and timing of the change were spot on and so it was last night. Right on time and being controlled by the WindPilot the track showed a rapid veering to the left with little change in wind speed so the small amount of headsail was furled completely and the double reefed main gybed. By the time all was snugged down the wind had reached its 40 knots from the South East and with the main spilling the excess wind a solid but controllable run through the night was experienced. The wind had eased to about 30 knots at daybreak but it was not till 10:00am that I was able to let out a little of t he jib and get tramping away on course. It was then time to start into the important part of this festive day an cut the first slice of the Christmas cake that Chrissy made for me. Absolutely perfect after the six months on board thanks no doubt the addition of an organically sourced natural preservative of which I was assured would in no way contravene my temperance vows. Thank you, Chrissy. As is customary for generations of my family I was having a little nap after Christmas dinner when it was disturbed by a flapping out of control jib. The self steering operates through a drum on the steering wheel which in turn has a chain and wire rope linkage to the steering quadrant and with dread first indications seemed to indicate the parting of the wire rope. I have spare rope and clamps but it could be a complicated task to renew. Fortunately it was found that this 25mm SS tube had fractured and it was a relatively simple work around to have us once again speeding along under double reefed main and full jib. As a footnote, Joanne, under her name Joanne van Os is a published author with the very interesting and gripping tale " Outback Heart " --------------060505070704070605000707--