Underway for Lord Howe

0700 position 30-02S 164-22E. 200 nautical miles from Norfolk Island, 290 nautical miles to Lord Howe Island

Van Diemen got underway from Ball Bay at 830AM yesterday, and by 930 the engine was off and we were beam reaching on port tack at eight knots headed directly for Lord Howe Island. Seas remained almost flat all day as the wind slowly lifted us.

Michael was busy all afternoon in the galley first making a meringue with whipped cream that he set aside for desert and then a baked chicken dish in an orange sauce with rice and vegetables for the main course. I believe he got inspired at the Norfolk Island Show. Nobody goes to bed hungry aboard Van Diemen.

At 730PM the breeze came far enough aft that we couldn't maintain an eight knot average speed and we turned on the engine. The wind has been backing ever since and is now blowing from the northeast at eight knots. Since we are headed southwest we can't use it. The forecast says it will continue to back to the north so we may be sailing again sometime this morning.

We have lots of fun aboard Van Diemen, and we drink a lot of rum. Yesterday afternoon Zappa launched a note in an empty rum bottle offering a $10 reward to who ever finds the bottle and sends him an email, and Zappa isn't even aboard the boat! We figured this way Zappa would feel like he'd participated in the passage even if he had to miss it.

It is always desirable to make landfall during daylight hours, especially landfall in an unfamiliar location. When the passage is less than 600 miles we can usually predict how long the journey will take within six hours or so. That allows us to time our departure and optimize the probability that we will arrive at our destination during the day. That strategy has worked well for all of our shorter passages on this voyage, and we were using the same approach to time our departure for Lord Howe Island. During our planning discussions there was some confusion and disagreement on the distance from Norfolk to Lord Howe. One of us would measure the distance on the chart plotter and it would come out to 560 miles. Someone else's measurement would be 490 miles on their Iphone navigation software. We finally resorted to measuring the distance the old fashioned way using dividers and the paper chart. 490 miles. Hmmm. Rob played around with the chart plotter and discovered that "someone" had switched the distance units from "nautical miles" to "statute miles".

We have no idea when this change in the units setting occurred. Thinking back on Van Diemen's remarkable performance on the passage from New Caledonia to Norfolk though (days runs of 225 and 229 miles as measured on the chart plotter and stated in this blog), it appears that the switch took place before we left Noumea. It sure seemed easy to get those high mileage days, and we were pretty proud of our sailing skills... Why would the plotter manufacturer even give you the option of using statue miles? They are of no value navigating at sea.

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