Weather Windows

As as the southern hemisphere cyclone season winds down, many cruisers are looking for the perfect time to set sail across the often boisterous Tasman Sea. But what if the weather guru's are wrong?

“This is the worst trip, I have been on.” My voice rings loud and clear as I sing the chorus to Sloop John B.

Just 15 feet from me, David is sound asleep. But no matter how loud I sing, I know I won’t disturb him. My voice is nothing compared to the sound of wind whistling through the rigging, the crash of water rushing across the foredeck as Sahula shoulders her way through wave after wave.

For the past three days we have been taking turns hand steering as we fight our way towards Australia. A polar dip has caused two different weather systems to unexpectedly overlap each other, creating messy cross seas. Without our assistance, the windvane self-steering gear struggles to keep Sahula close hauled in the near-gale force winds.

We are both tired. The work of sitting behind the wheel in these sloppy seas is physically demanding, but also boring. We have shortened our normal night watches to just two hours. Sleep comes instantly when I get down below, strip off my foul weather gear and climb into the leeward settee for my off watch. David is the same. And, though I am technically getting enough rest, I still need to do something to keep me fully awake and alert as day 13, of what is usually an eight- or nine-day passage, slowly dawns.

The Tasman Sea doesn’t have the best of reputations. Only one of the seven previous crossings I have made between New Zealand and Australia could be considered pleasurable. The others ranged from plain hard work to one of the worst passages I recall making with Larry. Thus, I had been determined to choose a good weather window for this seventh crossing.

The month of May is usually the best time to head westward from New Zealand. The seawater temperature has cooled down from its summer high, so the risk of tropical cyclones has fallen right off. Winter gales have not yet begun rampaging across the Tasman Sea. Several weeks ago, I’d started watching the online weather forecasts on Windy, and on Predict Wind, plus the New Zealand met-office site. I was looking for a time when the center of a low-pressure system crossing the Tasman was just passing the North Island of New Zealand and before the next low pressure system shoved its way between Tasmania and mainland Australia. Potentially good departure windows seemed to appear every fifth or sixth day.

Ten days before the end of May we’d finally taken care of all our landside obligations. We’d enjoyed a brisk sail 120 miles north towards Opua, the NZ Customs clearance port, to complete the formalities of leaving New Zealand. But before we cleared and set off to sea, both of us were looking forward to finding a quiet anchorage among the myriad islands near Opua where we could spend a few days recovering from the rush to set sail while we waited for our weather window to open.

Only hours from Opua, our plans were derailed. My six hourly scour of weather sites indicated the exact pattern I’d hoped for was already forming up. If we could clear customs, make a dash to the local grocery store for fresh fruit and veg, and set sail the next morning, it looked like we’d have a fine chance to reach northwestward with fresh favorable winds for four days then catch a Tradewind sleigh-ride westward.

“What about catching the following window,” David suggested. “Be nice to do nothing for four or five days.”

It was tempting. Then I looked at the weather sites again. “This front is moving slower than usual. Could be ten days before another window opens up. Winter is getting closer,” I answered.

As I rushed about buying provisions, then doing the pre-departure paperwork, David topped up Sahula’s water tanks, secured the deck strap for our harness lines, set up the para-anchor and its bridle so we could launch it without having to go on the foredeck, and then deflated the tender, rolled it into its travel bag and secured it on the afterdeck.

As I was walking back down the dock towards Sahula I met Doug, a Kiwi cruiser I knew quite well. He asked when we planned to set sail.

“In the morning. Nice weather window.”

“Cruising is a lot easier and safer now than when you and Larry set off,” Doug stated. “Now we’ve got all the info we need to avoid sailing into heavy weather.”

As a particularly hard gust of wind adds to the cacophony of sounds and I have to swing the wheel hard over to counteract Sahula’s surging, I recall his words. It’s true Larry and I had far less access to weather info as we voyaged across oceans. But in some ways that made sailing less worrisome. When we were planning to set off across an ocean we used pilot charts to determine the potentially best times to make a passage and the most advantageous course to sail for a chance of fair winds. To determine our actual departure day we used local radio forecasts, the TV weather man we watched at the pub nearest our anchorage, the weather synopsis print out we could find at the local port captain’s office. We’d watch for a time when we’d have at least three or four days of favorable winds to clear the land. Then we prepared the boat and ourselves as best we could for whatever weather might come eight or ten or twenty days later. But, we were never truly surprised nor disappointed when the weather deteriorated five days or eight or ten days after we set sail. We just reefed down and kept the boat moving comfortably or hove to until conditions improved.

Now, as I struggle to stay awake, I realize David and I are fighting something that should just be accepted. I don’t wait for the end of my watch. Instead I call down, “David, come on up and help me get this boat hove to.” I get no protest at all. Together we soon have the staysail furled. We’ve used the mainsheet traveler lines to haul the double reefed mainsail tight amidships and tied the helm to leeward.

Sahula slows until she is making almost no headway at all. The chart-plotter shows she is now drifting downwind at about half a knot. The wind feels like it has dropped by half, spray no longer lashes the boat. I put the kettle on to make a cup of tea while I download the latest forecast via Iridium Go. It indicates the wind should start to back sometime in the next several hours. “Don’t count on it,” David comments as he climbs into the cockpit, and, released from the chore of steering, settles comfortably into a dry corner under the doghouse to watch for coastal shipping traffic.

As I climb into the bunk, I feel certain this short-term forecast will be right. I also recall what Bob McDavitt, a well-known New Zealand weather specialist and sailing router once told me. “So many factors can affect weather patterns. That means, while it is relatively easy to make accurate two-day predictions, we forecasters are just making educated guesses about what will happen four days out. You sailors have to be aware, windows may open, but windows also close.”

Afterword – Less than half a day after we hove to, the wind did back. We set sail on a close reach to arrive at our destination 36 hours later having sailed 1370 miles in 14.5 days. No gear failures, no need to use the para-anchor, three of those days were true dream sailing. The rest – hard work. But it paid off. And, for the next months as we meandered every so leisurely north inside the Great Barrier Reef, it was the few perfect days of that passage which most readily to mind.

Note – In the above post, I have described just one of the potential ways of getting a sailboat to heave to. I have also shown about just one of the reasons it is important to practice using what Larry called, “the sailor’s safety valve.” For more details, more reasons you should know how to heave to – please refer to Storm Tactics Handbook. To assist my cruising kitty, consider buying it through the following link – https://www.paracay.com/l-and-l-pardey-books/?srsltid=AfmBOorgs1_YUFFixyw8ng6TMMotpvQSm-SZiMYej8-cZyzGzsk-LTjW

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