Morning quickie, rather late.

0745 position Dec 30th 3609 02430 trip 74 DMG 38 - very slow but we do seem to be moving.

I think yesterday's position should have read 3533 02406, not 3633...sorry.

Thought we'd never get clear of Agulhas and we're not out yet but looking just a bit promising.

Sue - Pinkaraj has always been a bit experimental and enjoyed the experience. A favour please as you seem to be doing it anyway - over the next couple of weeks, could you please monitor the pattern of lows passing Kerguelen and give me a rough interval and the trend in windspeed at 49 south? Not too much detail needed. Tks.

Richard P at Fastnet - separate note follows but if you are reading this, thanks and could you please just send the annual premium from the quote - use the direct sailmail address if you still have it, else berrimilla2 - many thanks.

Latest Position

This Latest Position incorporates Alex's correction for 29.12.09 and
is posted by I & G in the UK.

Close encounter

We are south of the main shipping channel around southern Africa but in the direct path of ships sailing between Asia and South America. Last night we received AIS data from a Santos bound cargo ship that shall remain nameless but who appeared to be heading straight for us at a range of about 15 miles. No luck calling on channel 16 - perhaps out of range in those seas. So I sent him a direct call on the DSC system (it's a bit like a mobile phone system between ships) and received an automatic acknowledgement but no VHF call on the designated channel as protocol requires. I tried calling him, no response so made a couple more DSC attempts but this time with no acknowledgement - instant thought bugger, he's switched it off because the noise was annoying him.

Tried again at about 8 miles on ch 16 and - phew! - he answered. Gave him our position, told him restricted in ability to manoeuvre and he said he could see our port nav light. I told him to pass whichever side was easiest for him. The AIS was giving closest point of approach of about 20 metres and he did not appear to alter course, 10 minutes to go. Pete went into the cockpit in party gear with our powerful lantern and I got the engine ready to start. Still no alteration, called him again and said he appeared to be heading straight for us. OK, he said, I can see you...We started the engine at about a mile and got out of there. I looked at the plot later and I think he would have missed us by about 300 metres - fine in calm waters and good visibility and ok for him last night with radar and other gizmology, but very scary for us in the conditions - it's really difficult to get the perspective right at night and when you can only see eachother when you are on top of a wave and have anyway very little steerage way, almost impossible to judge with that degree of accuracy. And a 250 metre long ship is a non-trivial object.

The wind has abated to a mere 25 knots and the seas have subsided a bit. We are right over the edge of the shelf and heading SE under reefed main and full headsail being set norh still by the current. I would really really like to be clear of this bit of ocean - easy to see why the early Portuguese sailors hated it too.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

This morning's mid con quickie

Position 0630 29th 3633 02406 trip 66 DMG 42
Depressing night. I think the most ornery bit of ocean I've ever been in - sea utterly confused, big, maybe 4 metre wind waves over big SW swells breaking from all sides, current setting north - north!- it even confused the instruments to the extent that the only way to set the boat up was the old primitive wind on the cheek. It still works!

Scary tho ultimately safe near meeting with big cargo ship during the night. More later.

'orrible and hindifferent...

Steves x 2, thanks for msgs. Last time we saw Leopard was off Lands End on her way to Plymouth and line honours in the Fastnet. At that stage she was about 240 miles ahead of us and we had about 280 to go. Sigh!

Two weary old geezers out here. Blowing 35+ and big waves but nowhere near as savage as the last one. We are in deeper water for a start and the wind has been steady rather that blasting through in 50 knot squalls. Having said which, massive wave just hit and broke over starboard side. I think we both wish we did not still have nearly 6000 miles to go. It's been pretty relentless. Even the Cape Town stop was full on and no real break. Time for the old fart's dither - why is the floor moving? Sailing? Are we really sailing? - how interesting! - now where did I put my glasses and my cup of tea...

Almost as soon as I had written that paragraph - imaginary glasses and cup of tea dashed from my quivering old hand by - yep - a 50 knot rain squall. Had to leg it outside and roll in all but last couple of feet of headsail - I wish I could find the words to write about the power and the sheer bloody indifference of these conditions - predominant SW swell - big but not huge, great planes of grey breaking water, dull reflection of cloud covered moonlight, Berri, all seven tons or so of her, just tossed around as if she were weightless, water often knee deep across the decks and filling the cockpit. And the noise - wind roaring and howling in the rig, water crashing and thumping against the hull and with a sustained deep rasp like a truck tipping gravel, boring across the decks. And this is just a little one - hardly even a severe gale and no way a storm. The severity of it all is the Agulhas effect - cold wind against warm current shortening, steepening and hollowing the wind waves superimposed on the swell over a steeply shelving sea bottom. I really think I'd rather be somewhere else - anyone for Scylla? Can I tempt you to a little whirl with Charybdis perhaps? Roll up! Roll up!

I think I have written about this before - the anticipation, the waiting, the curdling knowledge that it really can happen to us after our 2 rolls, the rather corrosive anxiety that goes with it all gets worse the more you do, the more experience you have. Well, it does for me anyway.

We are thinking hard about Kerguelen. The decision will evolve, but it's still a bit too early to write it off - after all, we nearly got there last time.

Just had a near miss with a cargo ship. AIS saved the day - more tomoz.

Thanks for all your messages and imagingesIz. Keep em coming please.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Remember you can enlarge these images by double-clicking on them

Cape Town departure photos

Photos of Berri leaving Cape Town, with thanks to Jeanne of "Nereida" RCYC. Their website is www.svnereida.com .

Once more...

Position 0645 28th 3547 02256, trip 50, DMG 29 - lots of crashing around for not a lot of gain but way better than nothing. Now back in the beginning of the next system and tooling along eastwards with just the jib unrolled at about 3.5 knots (would be more without the Agulhas current setting us back). Looks like a line of frontal cloud to the west. TGS (The GRIB Says...) that this one will be milder, at least this far north, than the last one. Here's hoping! Cross 'em please.

Almost permanent company of albatrosses and petrels and I forgot to mention the most exquisite tiny storm petrel in the gale a couple of days ago - 20 second glimpse but possibly European or Wilsons. I think the smallest I have ever seen. Wonderful example of adaptation to apparently overwhelmingly adverse conditions and these birds only seem to appear when it is seriously pearshaped. Where do they go?

I assume the drag race to Hobart is now over and the press have gone home but my brief look at a grib indicated the possibility of a little boats' race. Hope so!

There's a problem with one of the servers in the Africa sailmail station which sometimes delays these posts - don't fuss if you don't get one as regularly as usual. If it gets really bad, I will revert to Iridium.

Things near yet distant...

Middle watch - brilliant sky with black silhouetted fluffies. Yesterday a day of torpid indolence in a butter churn. For most of the day there was just enough wind to fill the twin poled headsails, the stretched and much repaired Love and War staysail and the shiny new red one now hanked to the replaced outer forestay. Now there isn't and we are bare poled again but for the opposite reason.

In most bits of ocean, when the wind dies, the sea subsides. I have to report that that ain't the case here - almost 36 hours after the wind dropped from the stratospheric to the merely (and here the three neurones went on strike in an alzheimeric reminder - I can't remember the single word for the lower atmosphere...) we've been in a violent steep wind wave over SW swell that seems to have only marginally subsided. The butter churn that is our little fibreglass home is still in busy, though no longer vicious corkscrew mode.

And the water temperature is 31 degrees and feels like a tepid bath. And we are on the eastern edge of the Agulhas bank where the sea bottom dives from 200 to 5000 metres. Abandoned oil drilling well heads everywhere, but submerged way down. The Agulhas current has real attitude and, like the East Australian current, cannot be ignored. Here's the warning from the chart:

Information: ORIENTATION: 237 DEG
CURRENT VELOCITY: 1KN
CURRENT IN RESTRICTED WATERS
CURRENTS WESTWARD OF LONGITUDE 24DEGE, THE AGULHAS CURRENT CONTINUES IN A GENERALLY WESTERLY DIRECTION, SPREADING OUT OVER THE AGULHAS BANK AND WEAKENING TO A RATE OF 0,5 TO 1 KNOT. THE NORTHERN EDGE OF THIS CURRENT HAS A TENDENCY TO SET TOWARDS THE LAND. THIS DEFLECTION, INCREASING DURING AND AFTER GALES, CONSTITUTES A DANGEROUS ELEMENT IN THE NAVIGATION OF THIS STRETCH OF COAST. AN INSHORE COUNTER-CURRENT, SETTING EASTWARDS AND GENERALLY FOLLOWING THE TREND OF THE COAST, MAY OFTEN BE EXPERIENCED BETWEEN 1 TO 6 MILES OFFSHORE. THERE ARE ALSO REPORTS OF AN INDRAUGHT, STRONGEST BETWEEN JANUARY AND APRIL, BEING EXPERIENCED EASTWARDS OF CAPE AGULHAS. FULLER DETAILS APPEAR IN SAILING DIRECTIONS.

We are parked at 3550 02245 with the engine idling to give us the pooptillionth of a knot necessary to provide steerage way and keep Berri from going round in gut knotting circles. From the gorblimey to the sublime and back again - 'The GRIB says' there should be another 25 knot + blow starting soon. We are now far enough north, I hope, to miss the worst of its effect. It will be noice to get clear of Africa!

Small Update from UK

I've just spoken to Alex on the satphone. There appear to have been
some odd delays in the way Berri e mails have been sending out, hence
the double entry for today. All is OK and although Berri is rolling
about all over the place, it is now very much calmer out there. So
much so that a Consultation was in progress involving Dr Gordon and
his helpful sidekick Herr Schweppes. From Iz in UK.

Quick position report

Position 0700 27th 3608 02159 trip 100, DMG 43 - lots of effort for not much gain. Wind now down to 12 kts, twin poled with red sail on hanks and small furler. Trickling along in the right direction. Still very lumpy - Berri dry inside. When we get clear of Africa, we'll have a better idea of what we can achieve.

More later

Quick position report

Position 0700 27th 3608 02159 trip 100, DMG 43 - lots of effort for not much gain. Wind now down to 12 kts, twin poled with red sail on hanks and small furler. Trickling along in the right direction. Still very lumpy - Berri dry inside. When we get clear of Africa, we'll have a better idea of what we can achieve.

More later

NHF part 2

Sitting at a pleasant dinner table in Cape Town, you tend to forget or at least suppress just how bloody awful it can get out here. We have a steady 35 - 40 kt wind howling in the rig, gusting over 50 in the squalls, violent breaking seas, acres of white and milky blue broken water and glimpses of swimming pool blue as solid water goes past the windows, Berri rolling and crashing all over the place, closed right down with just Kevvo and the wind generator operating. I'm once again wedged under the nav table with my knees, everything sliding around, trying not to get thrown out with every breaking wave and not to look at the wind speed. And this is a relatively mild one - just a little gale - but with every effect magnified by the southern ocean swell and the Agulhas current. The grib said (and doesn't that become a mantra of hope against reality?) 30 knots but as we learned last time, you really have to double it here. So we creep north east and sit it out, hoping that any ships around have AIS and good radar because for us a proper lookout is really a sea level squizz out of the windows around the boat. Not very effective.

Udo, thanks for your message - all the bits seem to be working still, touch wood.

All that was many hours ago - I don't remember when I started this one, decrepit old git that I am. We've been creeping NNE bare poled and wildly uncomfortable and it's now 1800 utc and the wind has abated, now 25 - 30, waves still big and breaking over the boat and nothing really to do except sit it out until we can head east again safely. We are about 60 miles south of the main shipping lane so should be ok during the night but we'll have to be careful. We will turn east again as soon as the seas get a bit easier but right now we have to keep the boat relatively slow so that we don't take off from a breaking wave and broach and get clobbered. Poo.

Later still - I've just got into party gear and gybed us, still bare poled and now we are tracking closer to east. Still very big waves but they are only breaking occasionally and it will soon be time to unroll a bit of headsail. We have been caught before by the wave train that arrives out of nowhere after the gale has abated and fills the cockpit or, as near Dunedin, almost rolled us in 2005. Just before I went up, sure enough - huge breaker crashed over the boat - seemed from the inside to have come from astern and thumped against the stormboards and sent little spears of water through the breaks in the seals and onto me and my book.

Good fun.

Not having fun

Or enter the Examiner, stage left. We got ourselves down into the top of the low at about 35 south - nice easy 30 knots from the west and tracked south east - but down here at 3650 02047 it's a bit different. 40 - 45 knots, big breaking waves and we have decided that Berri's furler arrangement can't cope with these conditions. The poles are a bit too long and the small jib is too badly stretched to set properly as a de facto storm jib so we are bare poled and easing our way north east again. We've just had a 50 knot whiteout rainsquall with a front and a couple of cockpit fillers. We have a backup outer forestay on to which we can hank a storm jib or a small staysail but we'll try that in more benign conditions first.

I think it all means that we will have to stay up around 35 S all the way across and just work the systems. Which rather puts paid to Kerguelen at 49 S. We will have a better idea when we get clear of the Agulhas effect with wind against current and shelving ocean bottom but it doesn't look hopeful. Gloooom.

Wind now down to 35 again but there's more to come. Poor Berri in rather violent motion still. All has a deja vu feel to it - last time we were here, but further south we got savagely bashed too.

TPS suits work well.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Crossover

0630 position 26th December 3646 02026 trip 105 DMG 84 and at almost exactly 0200 this morning, just as the Hobart race was starting, we crossed from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

We are tooling along at the southern end of the Agulhas tongue in a 30 kt westerly with wind waves over the predominant SW swell of the southern ocean so rolling uncomfortably but all seems ok so far, says he grabbing the nearest bit of wood. Single small headsail poled out to port and about half furled and doing 5-6 knots.

I have broken out my TPS dry suit and hope tyo dispense with all the other clobber necessary to keep warm and dry, but will try living in it for the next couple of days before I put the other stuff away. Reminds me of the immersion suits we used to wear flying over the sea - pee tube and all.

Lots of albatrosses and dark petrels - albatrosses I think grey headed or salvins again but really difficult to identify - there are hundreds of small variations in colour, shape, plumage etc - jizz - and each species has different variations as they mature.

I think - and hope - we are south of the ships.

Hope youse all had the best christmas - we had a fairly gentle one - and thanks to everyone who sent us messages. Too many to list.

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Christmas Albatross : Thalassarche salvini

We'll be a bit short of images here for a while. So here's a Salvin's
Albatross or Mollymawk, possibly what Alex has just seen. The photo is
in the public domain courtesy of photographer Mark Jobling - to whom
thanks. More on the bird here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvin's_Albatross
Posted by Iz in the UK

Augea

Now there are about 20 albatrosses and a bunch of assorted dark petrels. The albatrosses are - I think - Grey headed and/or Salvins in various stages of maturity with perhaps a young yellow nosed or two. The petrels are very difficult to identify except for at least one Cape aka Pintado petrel, unmistakable because of the white flashes on top of its wings. Got heaps of photos but there's always a better one just after the camera gets put away. Easy to spend all day out there. I wonder whether one of them is Bartholomeu Dias, or even Speedy, making sure we behave. And Tommy Melville is out here somewhere too.

Back in warm waters of the Agulhas current. Temperature leaving CT was 17, now 24. Portuguese men of war everywhere.

Jeanne, thanks for photos! I'll tell the albatrosses to wait for you.

Time to ring K & E - I wonder what Cook and Dias and Anson and Magellan and Pinzon and Flinders and Drake and Henry Knight senior and all the others would have done with an Iridium phone. I guess the talking clock would have been somewhere in the phone book for those that lived before Harrison. Would Nelson have phoned Merton? It might have meant that many of the wonderful letters and diaries would not have been written - Nelson's last letters especially, perhaps.

Now midnight in Nome - con occurring to coincide with their day and we'll call Pat later. I think Berri's christmas will wrap around midnight tonight in Nome or Cape Prince of Wales so we have a few hours left if medicinal support is required after cleaning the Augean deck left by departing reindeer.

Carol - plastic bottle primed and ready for action later.

Fair winds and safe passage to everyone heading to Hobart in about 15 hours.

Christmas albatrosses

There was one in the gloom during the night and now two soaring around the stern. Identification to follow but lovely and way better than scrofulous reindeer that were faffing around during the night. Hoof marks and crud all over the deck. Santa couldn't find the chimney so consternation all round.

Chrissy 0630 position 3540 01923, trip 89 and we also cracked 8000 miles from Falmouth, DMG 58.

We had to change consultants in CT - Dr Murphy's supply ship was overdue and the man from Dublin had his in port so we've just had small Con with the Doc from Dublin along with bacon and tabasco sando. CT bacon is like bacon used to be before someone worked out how to sell water with it. Toasted all y'all and planning a few more toasts as the sun moves around.

Not much wind but at least it's now taking us south. Westerly at the top of low due tomorrow and we should be far enough down to jump into it.

Stockings and presents to follow.