There was some hope that the forecast would change, as it did a few days ago, but it’s stubbornly sticking to much the same pattern. We have a front bringing some northerlies, followed by a small low bringing southwesterlies, and then a high-pressure system bringing southerlies. It’s all happening at exactly the wrong time. Any of these systems arriving in a different order probably wouldn’t affect our arrival time too much, but with everything lining up as it is, we may have some decisions to make as we get closer to New Zealand.
Of course, no matter how much we obsess over the weather updates, it isn’t going to change anything. We’ll try to position ourselves to take advantage of the wind shifts, keep out of the strongest winds and keep on keeping on. At some point, the forecast will stop being something in the future and start being something we have to deal with in real time.
On a slightly more alarming front, we lost all our AC power last night.
When things like this happen, you realise just how complex these modern boats are. There are inverters, battery banks, circuit breakers, control panels and a collection of electrical equipment that all has to communicate with each other and its all supposed to keep working in a marine environment. When something stops working, finding out why can be a bit of a puzzle.
As far as I can figure out, the oven is faulty. I had been told it was tripping the breaker, and we tested it last week. It seemed to work, and the microwave worked too, so we left it at that.
Last night I went to heat a pizza and, after about 10 minutes, noticed the oven had switched off.
Hmmmmm.
I checked the breaker that had been tripping, and it was fine. Perhaps the display switches off after a while, I thought, so I went and pushed a few buttons on the oven.
Nothing.
Hmmmmm.
I turned the breaker off and on again.
Nothing.
Then I turned the induction stovetop on and nothing happened. That was a rather more alarming development, as we hadn't had any problems with the stove and now we appeared to have lost all our cooking facilities.
I inspected the breaker again and tried the stove.
Nothing.
Then I wondered whether any of the AC equipment was working at all. The panel showed that the inverters were running, but when I checked the outlets there was absolutely no power. No Starlink, no charging devices and no cooking.
I slowly went through all the breakers and couldn't see anything amiss. There is an unlabeled breaker with absolutely enormous wires attached to it, which we tried, but it wouldn't engage.
I turned off the oven breaker and tried the Frankenstein breaker again. This time we heard a faint digital blip.
I wasn't quite sure what went 'blip' yet, but it was a sign of life we'd had from the electrical system. And we were back in business - but not the pizza business.
So, frozen meals are off the menu for now. I am pleased that we didn't have to come up with a menu that involved cold beans from a tin or dry noodles.
There is always something to keep you occupied out here. If it's not the weather, it's the plumbing, the dinghy, the sails or the electrical system. And if everything works perfectly for a day, you can always spend a few hours studying the forecast and worrying about what might happen next.
The winds been gradually easing off and creeping around slightly north of east which isn't ideal at this stage. We furled the headsail around 3am and have been motor sailing with just the main and one engine at 1600rpm - its an economical way of gaining some extra miles.