Finally the weather gave me a break and I departed Townsville 0915 h today Mon, surfing south on a 1.5m swell and 15-25 knot NE breeze. Great sailing all day on a reach (wind abeam) and then a broad reach (wind abaft abeam on aft quarter) clocking boat speeds of between 7-12 knots. The increase in wind required a second reef the mainsail and I only needed a small amount of genoa unfurled to balance the boat. After so long with light and variable winds it was an absolute delight to sail in these conditions........until early evening! That's when the GALE swept through, thankfully from the north. I doused all sail on dusk as I had been watching the dark, menacing front heading my way.
By the time I had 'Rogue Wave' battened down and happily motoring along at 7 knots the storm was upon me. It always pays to err on the side of caution, as it is much easier to re-hoist sail if you get it wrong .....but it's an absolute bitch to douse sail in a storm. We battled the storm for several hours surfing along at 8+knots. Seas built rapidly from 2m to an average of 3m with the odd 4m roller steaming through. Winds averaged 38-40 knots. My wind instrument clocked a steady Max speed of 44 knots so if you add my Speed over Ground (SOG) I would estimate gusts to 50 knots. I was in the storm for the over 5 hours and it belted down rain reducing visibility to around a few hundred metres. On the plus side I travelled 40M! Thankfully I only passed one ship all night and that was after the storm front had passed. I shared the helming with 'Eric' the auto pilot as the seas were very confused akin to a washing machine ride. Standard practice to reduce strain and wear on the auto pilot is to share the helm. Half hour on and off was the routine until 'Eric' mutinied and decided he did not want to play and went permanently 'Off Watch'.
As you can imagine, loss of the autopilot is very significant in solo sailing. My passage planning has contingencies for such situations, so I diverted to Airlie Beach. Fortunately we were at the northern channel entrance to the Whitsundays. Unfortunately we were wide and east as I had intended to skirt east of the Whitsunday Group of islands and make landfall at Bundaberg. So for the next 6 hours I helmed when I should have been sleeping. I arrived at Abel Point Marina at 0700 h Tues morning after a total of 113M.
I quickly found the problem with the Raymarine Wheelpilot drive once disassembled. The planetary gearbox had stripped three of the small plastic gears. I would have expected the gears to be a little more substantial given the cost of the unit. So now we wait again for parts which I will order tomorrow as today is a public holiday. Not overly concerned as now another strong SE front is approaching Yeppoon and I would have been holed up in either Mackay or behind an island somewhere waiting for several days for the front to weaken. To keep my motivation on edge, I tend to focus on the positives of every situation.....so it's a good time to tackle a few jobs on the boat while I am waiting.