What a voyage…. Wednesday, 24/07/2024
What a voyage it proved to be! The first two days were great, sailing well in moderate winds. Then we had a day of pretty high wind, significantly more than forecast. The forecast was saying 23 knots maximum; in practice it was 30 knots, with gusts of up to 37. This was followed by three very quiet days, low wind, sun and warm temperatures, up to about 23 degrees – very welcome after frequently feeling cold in New Zealand.
I was then concerned about a low pressure system that was developing, directly across our path and pretty broad, no real way of avoiding it. The forecasts were saying maximum wind of 25.5 knots, but I wasn’t convinced. I decided to be very cautious: took down the mainsail late Thursday morning, and also went around the boat making sure that everything was tied down well. The wind picked up towards 20 knots by the evening: everything was fine, just sailing on the jib (foresail), making roughly 4 knots. I smiled to myself on Friday morning: it was looking like I’d been over-cautious.
Well, early afternoon, that changed rapidly. The wind rose to about 30 knots, with gusts of maybe 33. I thought: I’m pleased that I did take down the mainsail. And then suddenly all hell broke loose. The wind rose to over 40 knots. At about 45 knots the autopilot couldn’t steer against the force of the wind. It was 46-47 knots now. I flicked the autopilot off from down at the navigation station, then shot up into the cockpit and rapidly winched the jib completely in, from about half out. I had opted to let Manuka simply find her own equilibrium. The sea state was very rough, but the waves weren’t anything to worry about: at the most 3 metres, nothing out of the ordinary really.
This worked. Manuka simply settled stern on into the storm, with a bit of rolling, the wind pushing us forward at about 2 knots. Conditions really were wild: at one point a sheet of water rose out of the sea and blew across the cockpit, and as it did so it turned 90 degrees, some of it going down the companionway into the boat. At times it seemed that the wind was coming from all directions.
After about 10 minutes, during which gusts hit 50 knots, the wind rapidly subsided – it fell dramatically to about 18 knots, before creeping up to about 23 knots. I wondered: should I re-engage the jib and set sail again? No, I would wait a while. No harm in simply drifting for an hour. After an hour, there was no change. Again I thought of resuming sailing. But I still wasn’t sure that we’d passed out of this system, so I waited. Which was a good idea: half an hour later the wind was again 36 knots.
This was clearly a freak occurrence. Something had happened that greatly intensified the wind compared to what all four of the climate models were predicting. A good reminder that forecasts can be very wrong – and that being cautious is a good idea. As a result, we suffered no damage. In fact, it proved to be an interesting experience – it’s the strongest wind that we’ve yet encountered. As the wind subsided I started laughing out loud and saying “What the hell was that?”
The remainder of the trip was uneventful, light winds followed by a stiff 22-24 knots in the final 12 hours – it was rough coming into the large bay outside of Port Vila. It was certainly a relief to get into the inner harbour and drop anchor in the quarantine area.
Getting to the authorities took a taxi ride, and going through customs, immigration and biosecurity took about 2 hours. By this time it was too late to move to the marina, because they knocked off at 4pm. So I just stayed anchored in the bay overnight and then moved this morning. I’ve taken a swing mooring and a guy came out in a dinghy to help me tie up to it, in a strong breeze. So that wasn’t a problem.
It was good to then go out and do some shopping: I bought a SIM card for my phone, some bananas and a papaya at the main market and fresh food at a supermarket. Port Vila might be the capital of Vanuatu, but it doesn’t amount to much – it’s a third world town. A traffic-clogged main street, broken pavements and minibus taxis everywhere. It’s a poor country. But people are friendly and seemingly well-behaved (the guy in the phone shop provided first class service – insisted on making sure that my phone worked with the new SIM, while the ladies in the market were jolly). So all good – and it’s nice to relax. The weather has been bad, raining lightly all day. But it’s warm: 25 degrees – and the minimum last night was 22. Easy living!
