Once again the conditions are tricky and variable. In the last hour, I have had as much as 28 knots of wind and as little as12 knots and the wind is right behind me. It could go either way. I am tending to rely more on the EC model because the GFS has me in 35 knots of wind at the moment.
To be honest, I can’t really see what Jean is seeing. At 150 or 160 miles ahead, he might be seeing something I am not but I have run his routing now and we more or less converge under Tasmania. Yes, there is still this low coming down from Tasmania but trying to go and find a low can be problematic. And this low has a trough down the side of it again.
Meantime, I am struggling a bit for the right sailplan. I have had the masthead gennaker on and so I was a bit disappointed to see how we had done on the 0400hrs poll, because in these waves you feel like you want something to press against.
The pilot let go at one point and I ended up on my side. It is not so much a problem with the pilot, I just think it gets overloaded so I have switched it on to the hydraulic ram and it should cope fine. The steering is quite heavy, I think it is just these waves, I don’t think the pilot is just being a wimp.
