Albany to Tasmania - Day 14 ‘How Sailing Should Be’

Thursday, May 14th 2026.

Truth be told I have little to report today. We sailed comfortably all night with the wind ranging from force four to six from the East North East. Despite the up wind course, we made good progress averaging around five and a half to six knots. Our progress was aided by very flat seas and swell, the total of which wouldn’t have even been one meter.

With two reefs in the mainsail and one in the jib, we made steady progress South East towards Robe and Portland.

My crew Kevin and his wife Sharon celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary today. Congratulations to you both and my apologies Sharon for this trip taking longer than expected!

We sat outside in the cockpit during the afternoon, making the most of the calm seas and blue skies. By 1500hrs the wind had dropped along with our speed to around 3 knots. With batteries in need of charging, I started the engine and we motor sailed for the next five or six hours.

By sunset the wind had died completely making conditions ideal for cooking some soup and baked potatoes for dinner.

I spent an hour or more on the HF radio managing to check into the Austravel skeds for both the Western and Eastern sides of the country.  I managed to make contacts with the base operator at Casino, Shepparton, Alice Springs, Penong, Kununurra and Busselton. A rare opportunity only available in certain ionospheric conditions at certain times in the eleven year sun spot cycle.

After dinner we managed to switch off the engine and make steady progress under sail once again.

By midnight the wind had built to force six to seven. Emigre was handling it well but I decided to put a reef in the number three jib to take some load off the rig.

Apart from dodging a few ships off Portland, the big event of the night was putting our clock forward half an hour.

We were pleased to hear our friends on SV Jomaro had arrived safely at Portland Marina several hours earlier after a successful passage from KI.

The wind eased slightly  in the early hours of the morning so we unfurled the rest of the jib.

By 0900hrs, we had just 100 nautical miles to run to King Island and a favourable forecast to continue across Bass Straight.