Saturday - had to spend time dealing with late posting of delayed report for Fri-Sat after deleting a full one by mistake... The result of deckwork at the critical time - had to gybe around and see to sail trim, raised whisker pole for staysail, etc etc... Forgot report hadn't been quite finished and posted and started getting new one ready.... Grrr!! C'est la vie!
11pm Was great to hear, on Pacific Seafarers' Net, 14300, that Susanne on 'Nehaj' had successfully got 'around the corner' - although in very strong conditions (under storm jib alone!). Uku ('One and All') and Mark ('Maverick') came up also for a chat at the end of the Net - both had very good signals on 20m, Mark especially clear. Mark was happy that it was warm enough in the S. Atlantic, where he is now, to be wearing a T-shirt. Uku was very envious, as I was - it's cold and damp down here!
Made a lot of contacts later, in addition to the usual group, during my regular 10pmLT/0400Z sched on 40m (7160), with Matt, W1MBB, kindly in charge initially. Was delighted to find a Canadian contact - Daniel, VA2DF, from Montreal - among them! That's quite a distance away... Was also fun to chat to my friend Robert, WA6AMK - he was 'aeronautical mobile', talking from a plane heading S to Texas, making contact with me, VE0JS - 'maritime mobile' on Nereida...
Sunday 5am Daylight an hour ago. Fine, misty drizzle, right in middle of Low - pressure right down at 988hPa and wind also down at NW 9-10kt, boat speed 3.5 kt.
Nearly made contact again on 40m (7163) with David, MM5BBW, in the Orkneys, but just not quite good enough to make out what he was saying - but we did speak a few days back. I find it wonderful that I can chat to people in the UK and so many other places around the world from close to Cape Horn! Have also made radio contact several times with Lugano, Switzerland, although not quite well enough for a chat.
My other 'sched' of 14160kHz at 0000Z hasn't been working out too well of late - too far and wrong time of day for good propagation to my most of my friends' locations (although Rick, VE7TK, has managed several times from Victoria, B.C.) So it was great fun to make contact by chance, on Saturday, with Julio, WWD4JD, who was chatting to his friend, Juan-Paulo, XE1C, in Cancun, Mexico
- he was happy to look me up on QRZ.com and see a photo of the person he was talking to - gave me a chance to practise my bad Spanish!
Just gybed the mainsail - wind backing slowly from NW towards W and then expected to back further to WSW... Wind strength should increase soon, so hoping boat speed will improve... Dawn not far off...
(Later) .... so much for that hoped-for event! Did not happen. Had a really good sleep and woke to find us creeping along, in wind of 7-8 kt from SW. Spent a time adjusting sail trim and course and letting out a reef - but wind backed from SW as I did so - within half an hour, wind was from the South - yuck!! We're now (11:30am) making 098T (ESE-E) at 3kt with wind still from due S. I really don't want to go East too far since that's where land lies - it's always nice to have plenty of sea room and not be too close to a lee shore...
Pressure is right down at 986 hPa - we must be near centre of the Low we're tangled with. It was supposed to pass over to our N relatively quickly - wind is forecast to veer to SW by early evening - I can't wait to get back on to our SE course again and I have absolutely no problem with going slowly, as close-hauled as possible, in the meantime! At least we're not headed N!
Still a fine drizzle at times, with usual 100% cloud cover - no sign of it stopping.
Time for a coffee while the seas are fairly calm - no big swell at present, we're just happily bouncing along at a snail's pace!
Keep looking to see what the wind is up to.... waiting for it to begin veering...
1900GMT (=1300LT) - end of Day 67. We made 98 n.ml.(DMG) over the 24 hr period, measured in a straight line between the two 1900 GMT positions.
Total distance covered from Victoria, B.C., to end of Day 67 (by daily DMGs): 6,904 n.ml.
Distance from Cape Horn LH (to ESE): 920 n.ml.
Position & weather report for 1900 GMT posted to Winlink.org and Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign of kc2iov):
TIME: 2018/12/09 19:00GMT LATITUDE: 49-59.24S LONGITUDE: 090-52.67W COURSE: 099T SPEED: 3.3kt
WIND_SPEED: 14kt WIND_DIR: S SWELL_HT: 2.0m CLOUDS: 100%
BARO: 985.8hPa TREND: 0 AIR_TEMP: 10.0C SEA_TEMP: 10.0C
COMMENT: Dull, slight rain, SOUTH wind forcing us East