In the Depression

Wednesday, January 11th: The depression that is forecast approaches. As we are 4th in the group, we will likely get it the worst, since it will slide to the East Northeast, and with the confinement of the Antarctic Exclusion Zone, which goes East Southeast, there is unlikely to be an escape south, along the AEZ, except for the front 2 of our group. If we would be stationary, it would sweep over us in half a day. Since we will move with it, it will be 18-24 hours ,maybe 30-36, before we can get away from it.

Thursday, January 12th: We are in the depression, with 25-30 knots of wind, and forecast to go higher into the high 30s. The challenge with this storm is how big it is, and that the waves will continue to grow larger, since the wind will last for so long.

We started with 2 reefs in the mainsail and the solent. We went through the night with that, I tried to escape with the noise-canceling headphones in the sleeping bag, as once we were setup there was not much to do on deck. I would get up every hour and go out and look to see how we were getting on. All was fine in the low 20s, but when we got higher, the boat was taking off on huge 22 knots runs, but the pilot was having increasing difficulty keeping us from a big broach or a potentially catastrophic gybe. So we have made two sail changes, to the staysail from solent, and to reef 3 from reef 2. We are slower, but we are in better control.

How this will affect our future position relative to the weather at Cape Horn, we will have to wait and see.

Position
54° 48’S x 99° 06’W
Course
65° T
Speed
14.8 knots
Log
19,740 nm
True Wind Speed
28 knots
True Wind Direction
293°
Sails (click for diagram)
Mainsail (3 reefs), Staysail
Sea Temperature
49° F / 9.4°C