Sail to Rosslyn Bay in less than ideal conditions

Thursday 14^th September 2017

After a surprisingly calm anchorage at Port Clinton, we woke early but well rested, ready for todays trip to Rosslyn Bay (Yeppoon). An early morning check of the weather forecast before we leave suggests a 10-15 knot North to NE breeze, dropping out in the middle of the day.

The anchor was up and we were on our way by 6.30am, our new found mates from Geelong on Moonshadow left at 6am. We also saw Freestyle 1v leaving at the same time from their anchorage deeper into Port Clinton. We motored out of our calm anchorage looking forward to a nice leisurely sail.

Sunrise at Port Clinton 

We were totally unprepared for what hit us when we cleared Port Clinton. N to NE winds blowing at 15 -25 knots, and horrible seas. I hadn’t put the mainsail up inside Port Clinton, and it was too wild to try now as the waves were large and close together, making the attractiveness of going head to wind not even a consideration.

Initially the wind was around 15 knits, so I rolled out the Code Zero, and we were doing 9 knots in no time, but totally out of control with the heavy wave action, so it had to come back in and we motored for a while before rolling out the self tacker.

The wind went for NE to NW, still at 15-25 knots, and an hour or so later went west and dropped back to 10-15 knots, and the eater was a lot flatter, so the Code Zero went back out again and we had an enjoyable sail for a short time, as the wind kept dropping, and eventually getting down to 2 or 3 knots. We were motor sailing with the Code Zero still up , when the wind went SW and increased steadily back to 15-15 knots.

Once again the code zero was furled in and we motored, but the wind had not finished with us yet, eventually going SE at 15-25 knots, right on the nose for the course to the marina.

Approaching the marina at Rosslyn Bay into a 20 knot breeze

We were pretty glad to get inside the marina after a challenging day. It was still blowing pretty hard and we had been allocated a blow off berth. Fortunately, our Geelong mates we on hand to catch our lines as we came in.

It was not really what we were expecting , nor were any of the other people who arrived around the time we did. Anyway, it is supposed to blow harder tomorrow, so we will be here for a few days until it blows through.