Location: 39° 06 S, 126° 39 E
Saturday 12:00, 03.10.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 39° 06 S, 126° 39 E at noon on March 10. We are getting thrashed a bit with a proper SW’erly Southern Ocean gale. A bit more than predicted. At noon the wind was at 220 degrees at 30 knots. This is good as there was sustained 40 knots during the night. The barometer is now up to 1008, from a low of 999 last night. The seas have made up quite a bit and are generally about 20 feet, with occasional higher. These Southern Ocean waves seem to have more tricks that theirmore northern colleagues. We are getting water into the boat and into our foul weather gear in all sorts of new places.

We are making 9.3 knots direct for Tasmania. We did 229 NM in the last 24 hours, sailing under jib and double reefed main.We have come 871 NM from Fremantle and have 908 to go to Tasmania.

We have the usual sort of heavy weather boat issues. Every drop of water or gunk in the fuel tanks has headed straight for the Yanmar and Onan Genset. But all has been heroically filtered out by our twin RCI vortex fuel purifiers. These little gems work perfectly, clearing out water and debris without the use of filters, so that when its insistent alarm goes off, all you have to do is drain it and get going again. No need for new filters! We had to drain it seven or eight times since midnight, as well as draining the low point in each fuel tank. We seem to be OK now, with the Yanmar purring along, charging the batteries, heating hot water for showers and circulating warm water through heat registers in the cabin to dry things out.

We got a little water (salt) of unknown origin in the mid section and a fair amount in the engine compartment. Both our mid and engine room bilge pumps are inoperative due to unknown causes. We manually pumped out the mid section and ran our BIG pump (100 gal/minute) to clear out the engine room. We also have another portable bilge pump that can be used anywhere.

Today we had another first! The Sat Phone rang — our first incoming call ever! I was listening for the RCI filter alarm and heard a different noise. What now? The Iridium Sat Phone was beeping and had “incoming call” on the screen. I picked it up and there was my son, Alden, in Chicago. While thrilled to hear from him, I was perhaps a bit short: “What’s up? We’re getting a bit thrashed here.” He and I had just been emailing about sat phones and I thought he was testing the link. Alden says, “I know you’re getting thrashed, I just had a call from the Australian Coast Guard!” Captain/Dad: “????????” (Speechless). Alden: “Your Emergency Locator went off for a second and only gave your ID, but no location, they looked you up and called the house.” Captain/Dad “??????” (Speechless). Alden: “What’s your position and are you OK, I have to call them back.” Captain/Dad says we are OK and gives Lat/Long and asks that the Australians call to check in.

We have our very high tech EPIRB locator in with our life raft and other rescue gear. The EPIRB gives out our unique identifier and can, within 30 seconds, give our position from GPS within 100 feet. If activated. The unit I have is sealed, very watertight and NOT automatically activated when in the water. You have to lift a cover and throw a switch. Then everyone on the planet knows you are in trouble. Somehow a lot of water got in the compartment and jostled the EPIRB just enough that it let out a tiny message, and just that was enough to alert the world. Reassuring, somewhat. The Coast Guard guy who called just after Alden hung up was very understanding.

We had been thinking of exploring the wild SW coast of Tasmania before we go the last 80-100 miles to Hobart. Right now we are rather more eager to meet in a cozy pub in Hobart. Actually, we are up for meeting in a cozy pub anywhere.

But the Maggie B is handling all this with total class. The sails are perfect, the hull is sound, the motion is generally easy, Jorge is doing an excellent job of steering and…

All is well.