M/Y Iron Lady

May 25 23 39S 158 35 W

At 0800 this morning, Iron Lady is 1584 nautical out of Whangarei and roughly 600 from Papeete. Assuming current rate of progress, see should make Papaeete Monday afternoon. Current conditions are as follows. Barometer 1020 steady, winds from the NNW to WNW at 10 knots, seas are from NW at 1 meter. A cold front is projected to come thru tonight with a shift to southerly winds at 20 to 25 knots. We can see the advancing clouds on the horizon behind us.

Over the last 24 hours, Iron Lady logged 230 miles over ground for an average of 9.6 knots. Engine turns are 1650 RPM, load varies between 48 and 55% depending on sea state and how much power we are drawing against her 7.2 KW alternators. Fuel burn show between 5.1 and 5.7 GPH for similar reasons. At the conclusion of the voyage, I will try to recap average stats from bell buoy to bell buoy.

We have been burring fuel from our mid tank and now have switched to our forward tank to keep the boat in balance. We burned form the mid tank as we prefer the bow heavy.

Engine vitals have been constant – coolant temp 184 to 188 degrees depending on load, oil pressure is 48 psi, exhaust gas tempos just over 700 degrees F, exhaust injection elbow temp is right at 100 degrees. Hydraulic oil temp is 125 degrees (for stabilizers). Alternators are between 115 and 135 degrees F and the remote fan cooled rectifiers run close to the same – both are load dependent. The autopilot pump runs between 120 and 135 degrees depending on sea state and how hard it is working. THe engine room is a toasty 115 degrees. We monitor all this stuff carefully as changes are a precursor to issues. We have been watching coolant temps carefully since the change to our new 4 blade prop as the loads are higher and the temps are running about 6 degrees higher then they used to but the offset is consistent under varying load conditions

Another gorgeous night and beautiful day. Boated another Mahi but while in its death throws, it bounced off the back deck and was gone. Oh well – there are other fish in the sea.

In the next post I will try and review our individual daily patterns on and off watch. After three days at sea we have all found a pattern that works for us individually and as a group.

Cheers

TIme is 0900. Iron Lady is currently 1365 miles out of Whangarei and out the front window, Papeete is about 3 days away. Barometer is 1021 and rising, winds are WNW at a gentle 10 knots, scattered clouds and the odd rain shower about. Course is 43 and the waves are from the WNW at 1 to 2 meters. The confused seas of the last few days are behind us and we are in the lobe of a large elongated high pressure system.

After a great stir fry dinner made by Steve last night, I went off watch at 2000. Talked to Tevaka, the sailing cat that left Whangarei for Papeete when we did. She is south and west of us. Did the standard end of watch engine room checks andI was off to bed and asleep before my head hit the pillow. Next things I knew , Steve was waking me for my 0400 watch – it seems like had been asleep for just minutes. Gentle winds and seas do wonders.

When I arrived at the helm station, Steve had prepared a latte (from sachet) for me and we went thru the usual end of watch small talk – no ships sighted – no weather – boat running well, etc. Then talked turned to Papeete and the things we wanted to get done when we got there so our sojourn would be brief before heading off to other islands. Steve asked me to get the 0515 and 0615 weather faxes from ZKFL (New Zealand) on 9 meg. We haven’t been able to receive any weather faxes for 2 days due to atmospherics which sometimes interfere with HF communications. Email over HF has been spotty as well but we have managed to get GRIB files so we have a good idea of what the weather patterns are but it is nice to have the weather faxes back. Then Steve was off to bed andI was alone at the helm.

There was a soft glow from the electronics which were set up in their night mode. My new favourite set up for passage making is to have 2 displays set up for radar – one at 24 miles for long range target detection and one at 6 miles for avoidance but the last ship we saw was 1000 nautical miles ago – the Pacific Ocean is a big place. The other display is set put to display Maretron data which monitors the ship vitals, weather and performance data. I will try to do a post on our blog later about it. We do not need a chart display as navigation data (heading, course, track and cross track error) are overlaid on the radar displays. We do carefully check our route for obstacles before doing this.

Outside, there was a full moon which lit up everything wonderfully. Just a few cotton ball cumulus clouds and some high cirrostratus about. The door to the aft deck was open and the air was warm and tropical. I could hear the rush of the water past the hull and the steady beat of the John Deere.

The seas and winds were gentle from the WNW aft of the beam and the chaotic seas of the last few days are behind us. Iron Lady was doing her usual 9.6 to 10 knots but it felt like we were flying thru space and time. The whole experience was magical.

As my watch was ending I got to watch a beautiful sunrise and Roger came up for his watch. I fired up the stove for a couple of lattes while Roger put our Shabby for an early morning swim. We gave the boat a quick rinse to get off the entrusted salt of the last few days so we could see clearly out the windows and spend some time on the aft deck and fly bridge enjoying a fine day.

We were just finishing our coffee when Shabby did his thing and invited a nice Mahi to join us for dinner. No missed fish this time.

Now how good is all that. On days like this, you hope the passage never ends.

Cheers

1200 position is 2 18 S 164 51 W. COG 046. 228 Nautical noon to noon run or 9.5 knots average. Barometer 1019 steady, winds NW 20 to 25. Seas 2 to 3 meters from the NW and confused. Sky conditions overcast with heavy rain showers about. Distance travels since Whangarei roughly 1175 nautical miles – over half way to Papeete.

We have found ourselves collocated with the convergence area between two high pressure systems that spawns lows that overtake us and then pass southward. The highs are moving at the same relative speed as us so are stuck in the middle so to speak. Last night brought torrential downpours and heavy lightening as the last low and front came thru. In one watch, the wind backed thru 360 degrees and returned to northwest at 25 knots.

With the wind shifts, the sea state is composed of two competing wave trains. When they are out of phase, they tend to cancel each other. When they are in phase, they are additive and short coupled peaky waves are the result. We are keeping the waves on Iron Lady’s shoulder (roughly 30 degrees off her port bow) and she is very comfortable with that. Steve says she is the best behaved boat on that point of sale that he has ever been on – power or sail.

While the motion can be abrupt, the primary nuisance is when Iron Lady’s big Rocna anchor punches into one of the waves with a resounding boom most notably heard in the forward stateroom where I sleep but I certainly wouldn’t trade our ground tackle for anything else.

As we passed 164 West today, we lose another hour and it is Steve’s turn to get a 1 hour break from watch keeping. We also performed some small maintenance chores including the repair of a blocked filter on our salon aircon cooling circuit (we use fresh water and hull cooling for all our zircon needs -no saltwater). When Admiral Debby arrives, it would be bad news if the AC were inop.

We also suffered a mini squid attack today – they were all over the deck. Steve bet Roger that he couldn’t eat one raw. THe end of that bet was when Rog had his over the side disposing of the nearly ingested squid.

Best

Thought I would delve in to the topic of weather a bit. We have all kinds of resources available to us – a professional router, weather fax, and grub files from a variety of sources. It turns out, however, that we can do a respectable job with some very traditional instruments. These include a recording barometer, true wind speed and direction, and eyeballs out the window looking at cloud formations.

For those who have an interest, we can step thru a simple exercise to show how it works. Take a sheet of regular printer paper and draw a large circle on it. In the center, place the letter “L”. At the top of the circle, put a directional arrow pointing to the right. At the bottom of the circle put an arrow pointed left. In similar fashion, put a down arrow at the 90 degree position and an up arrow at the 270 degree position. That completes the cardinals, now just fill in the positions in between with arrows following the same direction as the ones above and below it. That is the diagram of the winds circulating about a southern hemisphere low.

Place your low on a table and find a short straight object to represent our boat.

Two nights ago, we had winds from the northwest. If you look at the low on the paper, this corresponds to the arrow direction at 45 degrees. Place your little boat there and point it tilted slightly upward from horizontal on the bow end (right side). This corresponds to our desired track. From this little picture, you can see that the wind was on our stern port quarter and that the center of the low was south and west of us.

By the following night, the winds had gone westerly so now place your little boat (still tilted the same way) at the top of the circle where the arrow points from the west. You can see that the wind was now more behind us and the centre of the low was now pretty much directly below us. From this, we can deduce that the low is moving in an easterly direction faster then we are. What we don’t know yet is whether or not the low is headed toward us (north) or away from us (south). To tell that, we watch the barometer and possibly the wind speed. In the case of the barometer, the pressure rose from our first position to our second position and the winds were decreasing in strength. Pretty good indication that the low is moving away from us to the south.

Now we know that the low beneath us and it is moving easterly faster then us and south away from us. As this happens, we can generally expect improving weather and winds backing to the west and southwest and easing.

Similar constructs can be made for high pressure systems which have the arrows reversed from the ones on our low.

Well how did things work out. Pretty much as advertised. We had a weak front extending from the low stalled against the high which kept us in occasional showers. Then yesterday, the front moved on, the winds went west and dropped, the sky cleared and the barometer shot up indicating building high pressure and fine weather.

Until midnight. When I went off watch at 2000, things were perfect. I woke up at midnight to sound of waves slapping the hull, wind, and rain. I went up to the salon and Roger was going off watch and Steve was coming on. It was blowing 30 plus higher gusts, rain and steep short period waves. THe event lasted unit about 0300 just before I came on watch at 0400. By 0400, the winds were back down under 10 knots and seas were dropping. Well so much for our forecasting (and everyone else’s because they didn’t see it coming either).

Next morning, things became clearer. The front apparently stalled again and a small disturbance appeared out of no where along it just where we were located. At midnight the barometer was 1020 when the squalls hit. Over the next 3 hours it dropped 3 millibars and by 0800 this was up a total of 5 millibars and rising rapidly with the winds dropping again and clearing skies. It was just that small transition area entering the high that was the issue.

The little system was no big deal and we would not have altered course to avoid it had we known about it in advance. THe point here is that despite your best efforts, you do get surprised. Roger said it best – never be complacent when you are at sea.

Shabby is out for his morning swim – the waves were a bit much for him yesterday but he tried. Hopefully better fortunes today.

Still on the great circle route. COG is 48 degrees and we are 900 nautical out from Whangarei still maintaining close to 10 knots average. Winds are light at less then 10 knots with confused seas less then 1 meter. Overcast but looks like clearing ahead.

Cheers

The above is our noon position as of May 20, 2013. Current distance out of Whangarei is 706 nautical yielding an average daily run just shy of 240 nautical or 10 knots. Engine revs 1650, fuel burn about 5.7 GPH with Iron Lady heavy on fuel and water. COG is 48 degrees magnetic.

Barometer is 1017 and rising and winds are from the west at 15 to 20 knots putting the wind on our stern quarter. Seas are running about 2 to 2.5 meters and Iron Lady is getting the occasional surf. A building 1007 millibar low beneath us is heading southeast and a 1025 millibar high to our northeast are providing our weather and winds. Last nights heavy showers have given way to clear blue skies but a stalled front remains in the area.

Last nights prog from ZKFL showed us converging with the centre of the low on its southern side which would have put the winds in our face at 20 to 30 knots. We gave some thought to some northing today to avoid that if the low continued to track as forecast. After reviewing todays information, we are maintaining our voyage plan and proceeding on the great circle route between Wangharei and Papeete as the low is clearly beneath us and a big high is above us. Just as well as northing now would have put us into the present winds and seas and put the sourtheast trades more on our bow as we approach Tahiti. Sometime it is “pay me know or pay me later” but it has all worked out so far.

Dragged out the heavy fish artillery yesterday and hooked up two nice Mahi Mahi on Grandson of Shabby – our favourite lure. Shabby did well but the crew lost them at the boat. Hope we get another chance today. For those of you who wish to know more about the saga of the family Shabby, you can go to mvironlady.com and do a search on Shabby.

Best from the good ship and crew of Iron Lady.

After roughly 11 days at sea and 2251 nautical miles from Whangarei NZ to Papeete Tahiti, Iron Lady is resting comfortably at Marina Taina. I have been doing posts during our transit and Steve Dashew was kind enough to put them up on Setsail.com but without pictures. Over the next few days, I will try to get the posts up on our blog with pictures. as well as get to your comments.

Right now, it is time for a bit of rest – the last two days featured a stalled occluded front right on top of us reinforcing the southeast trades and we had winds of 20 to 35 knots and seas up to 4 meters forward of the beam. Iron Lady did great but sleep was hard to come by in the front cabin – time to catch up a bit.

Cheers