Velux 5 Oceans - Most extreme storm since 2003 for Hatfield

by Derek Hatfield on 8 Jan 2011 Hello from Active House

The storm has started to subside slowly. The low pressure system that has developed is massive, probably almost 1000 miles acoss and is moving slowly to the south and east.

Other than the huricanne that I encountered at Cape Horn in 2003, this is probably the most extreme storm that I have experienced. A few facts of my encounter this time, top wind gust: 54 kts; sustained wind of 40 kts for amost two days; estimated biggest wave: 15 meters (luckily not breaking at the top), top boat speed on a wave surf; 25.4 kts, amount of sleep in 48 hour period; two 15 minute cat naps in the deck chair. I have since slept for about 6 hours once the wind came down to 30 kts and I could relax a bit on the wave height. The end of a storm is like leaving the dentist, so rewarding and relaxing.

I have a few small breakages and one major one in that I have broken the second outbaord reef line, making it impossible to place the second reef in the main. I'm attempting to fix this somehow but other that going out to the end of the boom and feeding a new reef line in, it will be tough.

I will try and fix some form of temporary strop for utilizing reef two.

Right now I'm still with the third reef and storm jib as it is still gusting to 40 kts on occasion.

I'm hoping to reach the gybe point sometime in the next 12 hours and this will allow me to head more direct to NZ. Gutek and I are having a ding dong battle and I hope we can continue to the finish.

Take Care

Derek

Velus 5 Oceans website