5/9/12

Noon Position: 47 40' S, 169 12' E, SOG 6.5, COG 010, Day's Run 96nm.
Last night I enjoyed the lovely no wind, bitter cold, and heavy
condensation on every possible surface aboard Odyssey that seems to
often arrive with high pressure immediately following a gale. Now, of
course, we're slugging it out upwind again in building breeze, with the
wind right on the nose from the NE, exactly where I want to go. Had a
lot of fun this morning before the breeze came up trying to sail upwind
with the remnants of the big SW swell still behind us, every minute or
so one would shove Odyssey just right, and the increase in apparent wind
would bring the breeze way forward, luffing everything hard for a few
seconds, before the boat stalled out on the backside of the swell. A
very noisy night. I'm hoping I get some kind of wind shift so I can get
a little bit better angle on either tack - right now I'm aimed straight
at New Zealand, so in the interests of warmth and latitude we'll push
north for the day, then wind being equal, tack offshore for the night.
New Zealand doesn't seem to want to give us a break - upwind almost all
the way across the Tasman, then a gale from all points of the compass,
now beating it out upwind again. This morning I noticed that the boom
has developed a noticeable bend, with the middle pushed out to port. I
hadn't noticed until now because normally the reefed sail covers the
boom, but in the banging around this morning under full sail it was
pretty visible. My only guess is that it's from the capsize we took
back south of Australia - there was a preventer on the end of the boom
made off to starboard, so the hit of the water along it's length
certainly could have given it a new and novel shape. I'm just going to
pretend it's there to help give the foot of the sail a faster shape upwind.