we think this is what he is on about ;-)

While the economies of our respective countries crumble further from Berri-induced inactivity, here's a link to the song Alex would like for Flag Hoist - on Youtube. Something to listen to as we wait for them to saunter in to Hobart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BYOJ1tc-k

provided by Iz in the UK

Baez

Doziness and old fartery prevalent, I'm afraid. Seems my memory ain't so good and I've mixed two Baez songs - probably why I couldn't find the one I thought I was looking for in NY...The Juniper one is 'Copper Kettle' and it's about making illegal whisky so I was at least partly right. The other starts 'Show me the prison...'

Thanks izz and sorry if I've sent all y'all chasing feathered ferals.

We're under 500 to go, but it's going to be slooooow - trickling along at 2 - 3 kts, almost no breeze. 6 days at this rate.

can almost smell the roses

South of Wollongong

Position 0630 24th 4311 13502, trip 129, DMG 124 and SE Cape 516 miles. Well inside the last 628 miles, the last Berrimilla Unit. If we were actually sailing the S2H course, we'd be down approaching Bateman's Bay. From here, it's just a matter of time. Metre by metre, and climb over the white lines in the road.

The sun's out and we had the last 2 Cape Town eggs and 4 of the last 8 slices of bacon with our breakfast dose from the good Doctor from Dublin. Wooohooo. Pete's out in the cockpit in his shorts scraping off the scales.

Request

I would love to have a copy of Joan Baez singing a ballad that I think had the word 'Juniper' in the title, with the chorus 'There but for fortune go you or go I' - it's about the results of too much gin, actually and I think appropriate for the flag hoist.

I tried to find one last time I was in New York, in an amazing record shop and no go. The shop had just about everything else although not the last live gig she did with Dylan (yes please if you've got that too!). Does anyone know what album it's on? Better still, does anyone have a copy? Song or album? And are you willing to send it to me?

If so, could you please tell me via berrimilla2 at gmail. If you have a copy, I'll finger you to send it to my personal gmail.

Thanks!

One for breakfast and a special greeting for Corey

I have just received a deputation purporting to represent all the colonies of ferals now prolificating around the place - the original booties and the baggies, pit, crutchies, mouldies, foodies, dry suit sweaties, boggies, bilgebotties and the rest. They wished to make clear that they take a very dim view of the fact that Tasmania is just Over There and they indicated their intention to emigrate en masse at the first opportunity in Hobart. I told them I'd find them a noice Kiwi boat (just their style) or maybe even a CSIRO research vessel so some real science can be done - and point them in the right direction. Mollification seems to have occurred and they departed to their grots apparently happy. I hear the sounds of trunks and suitcases being dragged from the depths.

They asked me to say farewell to all y'all and thank you for all those bits of flaky skin and bogeys and scrofules and stuff that they know you've been teleporting out here for them to feast on - so all y'all Merci et au revoir from les Feraux. I have a feeling they won't all go and we may have company in the future but I haven't let on that I think it would be a better boat if some of them did stay. We'll see.

Corey D - if you're out there - Very Special G'day! We're almost at the opposite end of the earth down here but thinking of you. You were one of those people without whom the NW passage transit would have been so much more difficult. Thanks! I'll try to stay in better touch.

Other ferals: I have just seen what I think was a sunfish, about as big as a small car, one high aspect ratio triangular fin and a blob. Masses of smaller birds - lots of Black Bellied Storm Petrels, a small flock of prions and possibly some Gould's Petrels. The albatross yesterday was a black brow after all - it came close enough to get a better look.

Paul D - the big albatrosses are almost indistinguishable from eachother as you know - the transition from fledgling to mature has so many variations across the species that a guess is as good as it gets. I've got perhaps 500 raw file photos (very high definition)if you or anyone wants to play with them. Each pic's metadata will allow me to locate the pic within a few miles if that's important but I will have to do it by comparison with the boat's nav data - the Nik predates the GPS versions.

Just been sorting a flag hoist for the Derwent - top to bottom: UK, Ireland (with Royal Cork YC and RNLI burgees) Portugal, South Africa and TAAF Kerguelen (Terres Australes et Antarctiques Francaises). Plus Berri's well travelled Q flag.

The big hoist will be for Sydney, covering both voyages. All the flags should be in Hobart ready for us and top to bottom should be NZ, Chile, Argentina, Falklands, UK, RANSA burgee (representing Australia), USA, Alaska, Canada, Inuvut, Greenland, Cornwall (representing UK the second time) and as above from Ireland, minus the Q. 18 all together unless I've forgotten any - and unique. If I can find the 2009 Fastnet battle flag, we'll hoist that one too.

Fan mail

From a friend in the UK - I thought it ought to be shared:

3 Record Breakers potentially......just thought I'd let you know that in
> this current 24 hours I reckon you've been part of a record breaking
> trio...all in exactly the same place on earth within 24 hours...albeit
> differing speeds and altitudes.
>
> 1. Berri....just about to be only boat on earth to circumnavigate twice,
> the normal way and the "abnormal" way.....
>
> 2. Groupama that should be just about passing you as I write......hopefully
> to become circumnavigating record breaker
>
> 3. Space Shuttle.....I watched Endeavour landing live on the web last night
> and shortly after her de-orbit burn on her last orbit to land she passed
> directly overhead you (12.30 midday your time) coming in to land....long
> finals so to speak. It was the last ever night landing and therefore the
> last ever circumavigation of a shuttle to land at night.
>
> O.k. I know I'm being adventurous but seems to me that's a nice record
> breaking trio to be a part of !!!

Yep! Thanks Sue - noice indeed! But the Examiner still lurks, even on long finals.

Barn door quicky.

Position 0630 23rd 4318 13209, trip 132, DMG 128 and 640 to SE Cape - only 1 BU to go and the weather looks kind for the next couple of days at least. New grib when send this.
So with a bit of luck, we will be in the Derwent this time next week.

A funny old life part 2

Groupama3 will overtake us today. I've been in touch with the navigator, Stan Honey, who is a friend - talking to him is a bit like talking to Leroy Chiao in the International Space Station - same concept, we're both circling the earth, only the technology is different. G3 will pass us at about the same distance as Leroy and they are going nearly as fast. A shame we won't see them as they flash by. More circles in the sand - this really all began with Leroy.
We're flying too - nearly 7 knots directly at the flaky green door and we can almost smell the farmyard. Tasmania fills the horizon, but over the hump. Maatsuuyker is one BU ahead and SE Cape another 50 miles or so. This morning's position will be the transition point - from tomorrow I will measure DMG from SE Cape.
Val and Jill - and John and Sherryl, Kimbra, Mark, Kate and the Westies - odd to be looking back at you all. And we are now looking at the true north pole from the east side of the magnetic pole so new rule: Variation East, Compass Least. Val, the Examiner is an imaginary evil being that stalks the oceans and sets difficult exam questions for unfortunate sailors who have the temerity to test her authority. I tend to think of her in hot pink leathers, hob nailed boots and carrying a stockwhip but she could just as easily be a gargoyle on the nearest cloud. She never sleeps and we must pass every exam or we are very deep in the poo.
And here we are, in the middle of the Great Australian Bight and I've been listening to Adam Spencer on Breakfast Radio in Sydney, telling us about the state of the traffic jams, the stock market and the bear pit that is NSW politics. There's a window between about 0400 local until sunrise when I can pull in the broadcast. I bet he doesn't know we're listening.
MJC, tks for shipping news.
Sue, hang in there - we're nearly in the bleachers.
Heggie - set the Examiner on to the cats - we'll send her up to you.
GV - don't you dare drink it. These things take time. And thanks!

A funny old life

Position 0630 22nd 4314 12913, trip 118, DMG 110 - mildly astonishing given the meanderings and wobbly winds but there we are. If we can keep 5 kts on the clock we should make Maatsuuyker by Sunday. Not too hopeful at this stage. Groupama will be a green flash beyond our southern horizon in the next 24 hours or so.

Young, black on top and white faced albatross still around and a smaller one - looks like a black brow but isn't - and prions all over the place.

I've just been asked to do a short article for the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum newsletter - a bunch of readers whose towering erudition leaves me quaking and awestruck - long story but to do with the alcohol token, a coin substitute, that has been accepted from my sister by the PRM. Odd though because I once shared a house with someone who later became quite respectable and went off to Oxford to become the Director (don't know his proper title) of the PRM, which up till I learned about his appointment I had never heard of. Circles in the sand.

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A zig and a zag, a this and a that

Been a bit overwhelmed for a day or so. Wind great in the progress sense but keeping Berri together and hooning in these seas is a touch unrelenting and the grackling and clenchening keeps the decrepit metabolism working in high gear. Not quite 'not having fun' cos we are moving towards towards the flaky paint and rusty hinges but wearying.

Anyone seen the moon recently? Or the sun? I think we're on the wrong planet - will extract old faithful Merlin to get some times.

Bashing through the og we were earlier, black squally night, occasional glimpses of brilliantly sparkling stars. Vaguely aware of new banging thump, intermittent, sporadic - seemed to be coming from stbd q-berth so put it down to movement of bags of food cans and empty fuel drums squashed in there. A bigger roll than usual (meaning a very big one indeed) bigger crash and all the lights, instruments, electrics generally karked. Dark dark but for faint glow of some LEDs and the USB gadget powered by the computer. Dooon't Paaanic! Reach for blue towel, wake Pete and start closing everything down and begin diagnosis.

No radio (connected directly to the battery, bypassing the isolation switch), no engine start from either battery, no wind generator, lights, instruments. Oddly, some LED indicators on switch panel still working along with 12v dc outlets. Unpack q-berth to get at main battery box, nothing obvious, big shunt connections ok - 12.7 v from each battery so - phew! - we haven't cooked them - then a big lurch and the two big batteries and all their rats nest of wiring moved a couple of centimetres inside the battery box. That's it! The new crashing noise. Feel and prod all the terminals and massive wires and Eureka! the main negative lead runs from the terminal through a slot cut into the top of the rear side of the battery box and off to the shunt and it has parted inside the insulation over the crimp to the spade terminal. A classic stress fracture - the end of the 8mm copper wire looked just like a bit of brown cheese. While still held together inside the insulation there must have been just enough current to keep those LED's glowing.
From there, what to do? We don't carry spade terminals that big, or a crimper either. But we do have cable clamps to bypass shroud failures - big ones! We clamped the broken end of the wire to another big negative wire crimp on the battery terminal and bobsyer! Back in business. Sounds easy but imagine doing it with your armchair rising and falling 15 feet or so, rolling through 60 degrees and pitching so your nose hits the table in front of you. I'm gobsmacked that the electrics kept working so well for so long - hanging by a thread it must have been for quite a long time.
So - the cause - it seems that the negative lead going through the slot must have been holding 30 kilos or so of battery more or less in place for the two years since they were installed, but with a bit of movement happening in the heavy weather stuff causing the wire to flex at the crimp, weaken, the movement to increase, the wire to strand and eventually part.
And the fix - all y'all make absolutely sure that your batteries are wedged as tightly as possible into their boxes as well as being strapped down. We banged a couple of softwood plugs into the space for Berri and it will all get us home.

Here endeth the lesson for the day.

Quickie

Psitiion 0630 21st 4345 12337, trip 124, DMG 117. Chequered progress - sunshine, rain, gale, big rolling swells, short, vicious lumpy seas - roll up, roll up, come for a trip in the old Bucket in the Bight - thrills, nailbiting, chunder gaslore.

Pete's daughter, Sarah is 30 today! Happy Birthday Sarah! All y'all Consult and send happy vibes.

MJC - tks for whalers.

next stop....

Adventure Bay next stop for the old barge (and bargees).

(Click on map to enlarge.)

Not having fun part 27 or whatever

Position 0630 20th 4349 12353, trip 129, DMG 124. Progress - 999 to SE Cape.

The Examiner is back from the broom cupboard, dishevelled and feeling guilty that she's neglected her duty for so long. The 'mild' low to the south of us is giving us a steady 30 - 40 knots with huge breaking seas - vast vertical walls of translucent power and beauty - breaking along the tops and each one threatening to swamp the old barge. Tiny spot of headsail, Kevvo in charge. We take off down the faces at 9+ knots - Scary but seems better to be moving reasonably fast with the waves - you can only sit all grackly and watch and wait for the next one to come rolling through - and the next. And then there are the cross waves that come in occasionally and amplify the dominant swells and they really arrive with attitude. Bright sunlight between clumpy Cu and the sea a brilliant deep blue on one side of the boat and lighter, greenish blue on the other. No sign of it blowing out - I think we have got to sit through at least another six hours or so before it abates and the seas start to go down. Poo! It's going to be a long trip from here. Now gone thick overcast - rolling Cu and rain squalls. Sea almost black with glowing white breakers. Lovely if it wasn't so threatening.

Albatrosses yesterday - at least three big Snowy or NZ, not fully mature with lovely bright black and white plumage, and a really young one, black with a white face and white underside. I have their photos.

Greetings noble Blatt. The S2H doco is not bad - I've seen it a couple of times. Hard to believe that we were out there.
Caroline - longer answer due but not at the mo - thanks for chasing the met people.
Alan H - thanks for the kind words - and your chart - it's good to know that we've helped to light a few candles on a hill or two
Sue - thanks - enjoy Switzerland. Elpinkbokkerkergybat has face to wall again.

Tenterhooky and the squeaky gate

Position 0630 19th 4338 12104, Trip 125, DMG 120. 1075 to Maatsuuyker, 1122 to SEcCape.
Iff we can keep all this together and the Examiner stays out at the movies with Huey, we will have less that 1000 miles to go by this time tomorrow. From there, it all looks manageable. Keep em crossed please!
WP, preferred route will be Adventure Bay - perhaps overnight - then the Iron Pot and up the Derwent. But at least a week to go for that decision.

Western Australia!

Position 0630 18th 4351 11815, trip 149, DMG 137. Too good to be true. Anxiously scanning the horizon for the Examiner but the grib predicts more of the same for three days or so. Hmm! Less than 2 Berrimilla Units to go - 1194 miles to the waypoint, 1241 to SE Cape.

For an instant or two in a couple of days time, at about 4406 S 12636 E the magnetic variation will be Zero as we cross the transit from the true north pole to the north magnetic pole. Up in the North West passage near Devon Island, it was nearly 90 degrees.
Chris P, we might decide to go to Adventure Bay if the weather is ok and then into the Derwent via the Iron Pot - a rather more significant sounding end to a circumnavigation than 'somewhere' in the Derwent. We will keep you posted via the blog. would be good to have an escort - last time was pretty cool.
Maureen T - If we haven't already bored you silly and you are still out there, thought you might like to know that the plastic box you sent us the cake in has been our biscuit box ever since and has done splendid service. Would you like it back with provenance?

Middle watch soliloquy

Berrimilla's first circumnavigation was the Sydney-Hobart - Fastnet - Sydney-Hobart sandwich via Cape Horn in 2005. That circumnavigation actually began and ended in Hobart. It was a first and I doubt whether anyone will be silly enough to do it again.

As I said in an earlier blog, iff we make it into Hobart this time, we will complete our second circumnavigation in the Derwent, also, I think, a first but this one via the North West Passage. Hobart again is really where it can be said to have started and quite by accident. We were in Hobart after the 2006 Sydney Hobart race and we left to sail back to Sydney on about January 2nd 2007. Since leaving Hobart that day, we have sailed rather jerkily around the world. So, the second circumnavigation includes our near disastrous upending off Gabo Island (I think there's a link somewhere in the blog to this story) and loss of the mast, a tow from the Water Police launch into Eden and the long trip motoring back up the coast to Sydney. When we left Hobart, Pete, myself, Tom Crozier (no relation) and Dozy Old Fart Fenwick were on board as far as Eden, then Bermagui. The others left me there and went home and Brian Maher came down to Bermagui a few days later to help me motor the old barge back to Sydney after John Witchard had stripped the engine and got it running again.

Then later that year there was Baton Rouge and Pascal Lee drew his map in my notebook on the bar of the Varsity pub at Louisiana State University and the North West Passage idea morphed into misty life. Pascal's map is now on T shirts all over the place with Berri's Kingfisher. If anyone wants one, let me know and I'll organise a link to the Demented Ferret who produces them.

Rather a lot of intensive planning later, Pete couldn't come and Corrie McQueen flew out from England for the real start of the NW Passage attempt and the very long non-stop trip up the Pacific to Adak in the Aleutians and then Dutch Harbour. Kimbra Lindus joined us in Dutch Harbour for the actual transit. Then Nome, waiting for the ice at Point Barrow to break. The Bering Strait - two continents, two oceans, two superpowers. The transit, Arctic Circle to Arctic Circle - 31 days of astonishing experiences - ice, whales, foggy pinkouts, swimming bears, belugas, the old and the new DEW lines, the ghosts of Francis Crozier and the Franklin crews, freezing rain, Beechey Island so near yet so far, Eleanor on Devon Island for the eclipse. And the people we met. Amodino, Arctic Wanderer and the other boats. Afterwards, in Nuuk, the most expensive beer I've ever bought. The smell of fish from Paamiut, still with me. A thoroughly unpleasant Atlantic crossing and Gordy and Dave Carne rounding that bit off in Falmouth. Changing the engine in the car park in Falmouth and then the gearbox in Hamble. And the gearbox again in Lisbon. The application to the Russians for the NE passage. Berri's second Fastnet. And then it's been just Pete and me from Falmouth to here. About 26000 miles so far this time and about 2000 to go to Sydney, roughly the same distance as the first one. Only when we get back to Sydney this time can we tidy it up and say we've done the circumnavigation the more elegant way, starting from Sydney in April 2008.
But easily the best thing has been the people we have met - generous, amazing, involved, helpful, wonderful people all along the way from Adak to the Kerguelens and in Australia, the UK, Crosshaven, Lisbon, Cape Town and everywhere. And not just those we met face to face but all y'all out there - even Anarchists! - who read this nonsense and write to us and keep us going with your interest.
Thanks everyone!
We're not home yet though. The Examiner lurks and never sleeps. We think she might have taken a fancy to Huey and we might even send her on a blind date with Iridium Bill if she lets us through the barn door. And there's a hippo I know who should meet her too.

Of grackles and rocket science

Position 0630 17th 4357 11505, trip 133, DMG 112. Consistent!
Earlier:
We just cracked 13000 miles from Falmouth on the GPS odometer - that's miles sailed, not distance made good, unfortunately. Takes in all the zigs and zags. Talisker moment, I think, when Pete wakes up. We are past Dirk Hartog, past Leeuwin and almost south of Freo - so Hi Val and Jill and Kimbra and Mark and J & S - look south and the wildly waving arms you can see above the horizon is us, in the mirage.
Clearly, I haven't had enough experience in high pressure systems. This one is rock solid stable and behaving exactly as the grib says it will - no erratic wind gusts, no direction changes, steady barometer, relatively calm sea. Beyond belief wonderful! Not used to this armchair ride and it's such a nice surprise after my grackly doom and gloom.
Cyril, thanks! I sort of knew grackles are birds but I like the onomatopoeia - it's what knuckles under stress ought to do...Glad you are keeping your twilight handicap under control - takes lots of cunning. Don't tell anyone though! When do the twilights finish? Will we make it for the last one?
Margy - do you have a favourite horizon? I've got lots but they depend on time of day, mood, all that stuff.
Carla, our real rocket scientist friend has advised that coffee making without filters isn't rocket science at all. Boil it all up, add a tablespoon of cold water to settle the grounds and pour the coffee off the top. Carefully. That, of course being the problem out here in the corkscrewing boonies. But we shall overcome. I could, of course, use the plunger but the coffee isn't as good. Carla also gave me the correct version of my quotation from the post a couple of days ago - it's Sir Walter Scott and, as she so rightly states, he's saying that a desk job really sucks. So that's the poetry - but what was the occasion? Nothing to do with Scott.
Run out of books to read - working on getting the 2000 odd photos into some recognisable form - there are backups and copies everywhere so I'm aiming for one complete set. Then I'll make several backups and delete some of the duplicates. (Is there a program out there, preferably freeware, that searches hard drives for duplicates?)Then I'll try to edit it and get rid of the dross - at least half of them. Massive job and should help to grind out the miles from half way. Most of the bird ones also need cropping for maximum effect. Does anyone know of a quick and easy way to get them on line so all y'all can see them. Picasa is (was?) way too slow for that many even for tiny jpgs. My ASUS EEE netbook offers free on-line storage which might work but out here I haven't been able to check it out.
Today would have been my father's 98th birthday - we'll Consult with his favourite spirit this evening.

Oz getting bigger...

A load of middle watch nonsense

Position 0630 16th 4349 11204, trip 119, DMG 111.
This one's a composite: middle watch from here
SFSG! We may have finessed this one - just far enough north to avoid the blast - still in about 20 kt but the sea is relatively easy so far. Twin poled, furler and storm jib, double lines from the tiller to Kevvo (originals just a bit frayed), holding our collective breath. The tail end of this one, just ahead of the front and the low behind it, has 30+ knots forecast and it's on our latitude so we'll see. Meantime, hooning towards the barn door at around 6kts. In 68 miles, we will be south of Dirk Hartog Island and the Australian mainland and we are now only 577 miles from the closest point of Oz, down near Albany.

So - doom and gloom suspended for the time being, knuckles still in moderate grackle mode and appendages firmly crossed. Sweaty when you have to keep them like that for so long!

Somewhere out there, there's a hippo buying high heels over the internet. Don't know whether s/he's a cross dresser or just thinks it's cool to be hippo in blahniks. Definitely a cut above the mud wallows around Devon. No - I haven't gone completely loony - just the hippo.

We have a deadline. I have 7 coffee filters left from the pack of 250 that came with the jug I bought what seems years ago in Nome but was really only 18 months or so. I am recycling them - I can always get 2 cups but they tend to disintegrate after the second, so we must be in Hobart in 14 days or I go cold turkey. A variation on Prufrock, may his memory live on.

0630 from here:
Still hooning and looking good - sitting in 20 kt Nwesterly and the barn door beckons. Grackled knuckles less grackly - sea not too bad, Berri loving it - twin poles, rolling with the seas and surging along.