Mandurah

Hi everyone,
Last night we sailed from Quindallup to Mandurah.  There was a full moon and a fair wind which made it a very pleasant sail.  We logged 78nm over 14 hours for an average speed of 5.5 knots.  We are now on a mooring off Point Robert at 32 31.16S 115 42.46E.

Quindallup anchorage yesterday afternoon - from a helicopter!
(photo by Revision II)

We started with a nice 20 knot S wind which was expected to go E then NE overnight.  We set our initial course to keep the yankee working, and our track below shows how we gradually turned to port as the E land breeze came in.  We were sitting on 7 knots for much of the evening with one reef in the main and quite a few turns in the jib.  Our best speed was 8.5knots on a wave.

Zen Again track

Zen Again speed

The E land breeze was quite variable in strength.  At times we were doing 5 knots and others 6.5.  For a while we had the second reef in the main and the yankee well furled.  Around dawn the breeze went around to the NE and became very light for a while.  The speed profile shows this clearly!  We shook out all the reefs and had a great sail along the beach as the NE wind settled in.

Sunset over Cape Naturaliste

We picked up the mooring at 0800 with FSC yacht Alegria also here on a mooring.  We had a good rest this morning and right now Stingrey and Aqua Vitae are arriving from Bunbury.  I suspect they did a lot of motoring since the wind was very light for several hours.  A light sea breeze is now in which is cooling us down a little.  It has been 42 C in Perth today and pretty hot onboard too!