The trip across the coral sea. 11 of September

We departed Yorkeys Knob at 10:30 of the morning of Saturday the 11 of September. There were 26 boats in the rally ranging from a 17.5m Beneteau to a 10.6m Alejuela in the mono hulls and the largest catamaran was 16m long, we were the second smallest boat in the fleet.

We sailed through the Grafton passage at 1700 hours into the Coral Sea with a pleasant 15knt south easterly wind and then changed coarse to 50 degrees true slightly above the rumb line. As we got further from the coast the wind started to go slightly more to east, and ranged from 110 degrees to 131 degrees and the wind strength never got above 25knts and the seas were moderate.

By the second day the wind was consistently above 20knts, so we put 2 reefs in the main and put up the number 4 jib on the inner forestay, a bomb proof combination. The boat felt wonderful and Pukey the auto pilot had a very pleasant job. The apparent  wind was from 45 degrees to 60 degrees and this caused the occasional slam.

16m cat Le Belle

Landfall was spotted 1200 hours on Tuesday the 14 of September and we made our way through the Duchateau passage to the anchorage,where  we put the anchor down at 1430 in 10m of water after 4 days of sailing and 580nm of distance.