This is a savage bit of ocean, even in summer. The early Portuguese explorers called it the graveyard of ships and no bloody wonder. There's a lot of them still here including Bartholomeu Diaz, one of my heroes. It seems to have even more bite that last time we were here. Hoping that once we get clear of the influence of the african continent, it will come to its senses.
SteveJ asked what happens after a big knockdown - does Berri just spring back as if it was always intended to have a bit of fun. Yep - that's what happens - well, it is what has always happened so far! - her angle of vanishing stability is 146 degrees - she will roll to 146 degrees and still have righting moment so is immensely stiff by modern standards and she just flips back once the wave has past. Different story if the mast goes into the water though as we found when we were rolled right over and dismasted off Gabo Island 3 years ago this week. There's a 2mb pdf of that story here: Dismasted pdf (SJ, if it's gone, could you pse add one to the blog? Ta! ed: link to pdf added
Udo - my apologies - I made a mistake with one of the posts and left the footer on the message, dozy old fart that I am. I don't actually send these from the berrimilla2 address but from our sailmail address. The B2 address is put on the post to stop people just hitting the reply button and sending 10 pages of message strings, caveats and other garbage with their 3 line note and also, the idea is to keep the spammers at arms length and to keep their crap out of our inbox. We're off the air immediately if that happens - this is a radio link and very tenuous. Thanks for your NY message!
Malcom, thanks for advice - if we do make the dive, we will head for Christmas Harbour (Baie de L'Oiseau, NE corner) first and then go the northern route to Port au Francais. However, given yesterday's little drama, the dive is looking iffy. We'll monitor the conditions but no point in risking the boat and ourselves if it stays savage.
