Albany to Tasmania - Day 16 ‘To Windward Across Bass Strait’

Saturday, May 16th 2026.

Kevin and I were feeling significantly better by the morning. I’m not sure that the sea state had settled, but we had gotten used to it.

Both hungry from eating very little the day before, we cracked open one of dad’s frozen cheese, tomato, and egg quesadillas, and threw it in the oven. Usually they cook or heat up quickly in the fry pan but we hadn’t defrosted them the night before so the oven seemed like a better way to defrost them, heat them and make the outside crispy.  Mission successful.

By 0530hrs we had passed North of King Island and were beginning to make our way across Bass Strait. The wind remained at a force five to six from slightly  North of East.

Emigre has a short mast, a twenty year old boom furling mainsail and a ten year old number three jib cut down from Perie Banou’s old number two headsail. It’s tough in construction being 9oz dacron with heavy duty reinforcing and three or four rows of stitches in each panel. These characteristic combined with being fully loaded with provisions (eight tons displacement) are what you could call my ‘excuses’ for poor upwind performance. In reality, it’s mostly a deficiency in my skill level :)

Emigre points at about 45° to the apparent, sometimes 40 in calm conditions. In the short chop of the strait, we were managing 45-50° to the apparent. It’s a cruiser..

With that being said, we managed to lay the North cape of King Island and continue on the same heading of 099°M from abeam of the Portland coast, across Bass Strait and into Banks Strait.  It may have been to windward but at least it was all on one tack.

This is a distance of approximately 350 nautical miles on the same tack with approximately the same apparent wind angle. A first for me.

We managed pretty well despite the lumpy seas and headwinds, averaging 6.1 knots over the last 250 nautical miles.

Unfortunately for Kevin, his bunk was on the windward side meaning he has slept against the lee cloth for the past few days. For those that are unfamiliar, a ‘lee cloth’ is a fabric panel that stops you from falling out of your bunk when you are sleeping on the windward ‘high side’ of the boat.

They are absolutely essential for offshore sailing.

Of course my lee cloths were made in Perth by my number one sailmaker Carl at Extreme X Sails.

Kevin’s bunk and lee cloth.

Back at Kangaroo Island, Kevin and I had undertaken some remedial works on the deck hatches that were shipping much more sea water than we might have liked. Prior to this work, Kevin received the drip torture from right above his pillow and my sleeping bag got a proper wash with each wave over the decks.

I am pleased to report that our efforts sticking the rubber seals back in place with a tube of Selly’s Flexiseal had made significant improvements. Kevin is now only suffering minor drip torture while my sleeping bag only receives a few drops on the biggest of waves the engulf the deck house and race up the forward windows.

For those who have been following for the last couple of years, you are aware of the trouble I was having with leaking saloon windows. When I returned from Tasmania last July, the entire boat was sopping wet from these window leaks. That was after my mate Brian had already died it out!

Enough was enough. I removed the old acrylic windows and aluminium frames and took them to Sealed Marine Windows in Bibra Lake WA to have them replaced. This time around, after much persuasion by the manufacturer, I elected to go with frameless windows that were adhered to the fibreglass deck saloon with a product called Dowsil 795, completely negating the requirement for fastenings.

With the new windows cut, they were expertly fitted by Brad, a master aluminium welder from Sealed Fabrications who had previously worked for Sealed Marine Windows. I am pleased to report that the nine windows he installed have not leaked a drop!

New acrylic deckhouse windows.

As the sun went down, I started the motor to recharge the batteries for a couple of hours as I heated up some soup for dinner. By 20:00hrs, we switched the engine off and tried to get some sleep.