Rio Grande

After waiting and watching a succession of lows rolling up from the south west, we were starting to think we may never be able to leave Porto Belo.

Finally, with a 3 day weather window forecasted, and 370 NM to go, we didn’t want to miss a minute of it so we left Porto Belo on Tuesday night in light SW winds on the hope that the forecast would be right and it would turn E/NE on the early hours of Wednesday, which it did for a few hours, but then swung back to the SW. However, with the best chance in three weeks, we decided to push on.  

We’d plotted an offshore track, passing on the outside of the Florianopolis island but a few miles pass the point of the island the sea was pretty heavy, with the wind on our nose. In order to avoid a bumpy ride, we turned back and decided to go through the channel instead. We knew the bridge that links the continent to the island had a 17 m clearance and our mast is 15,5m high, plenty of room. But when we were about to go under, the gap certainly looked way smaller! We thought we wouldn’t make it! After executing a very rapid stop, backing off, discussing it, re-checking the charts, the tides and the lagoon owners’ manual, we convinced ourselves that while it looked like we wouldn’t make it, that was parallax error.  We squeezed in, just…

Once clear of the island, it gets quite shallow and  in strong winds the waves get big.  We headed offshore looking for deeper water, and a balance between a good wind angle and the swell direction. As the wind increased gradually, we were able to cut the engines and were making good speed. Alas, the forecast winds of 20-25kts, soon turned into a near gale and then a gale. We had been caught by an unforecast  trough, giving us a sustained 28-33kt wind gusting to 38kt from the NE, that lasted for over 36 hrs.  High winds, high seas, the anathema to cerveja sailors like ourselves. But we were running downwind with the wind, and at not too bad an angle on the swells, so Miss B took it in her stride, giving us between 7-9 knots with the main dropped, and only a scrap of jib rolled out.  

 Thank God the wind dropped on the last 80 miles, the sea subsided, and we got in the Rio Grande channel in calm conditions around 2am Friday morning. After contacting the pilots, we snuck into the breakwater between huge cargo ships and tankers, and puttered 10 miles up the river past a never ending series of commercial docks and fishing boats into the town proper.

The Oceanographic Museum dock where we were planning to berth was full, so at 5 in the morning we dropped anchor, and waited a few hours in the channel, before contacting the Rio Grande yacht club, where they were very helpful in moving some of the smaller yachts around so they could fit us in.

Quite a ride.

Lessons learnt and in some cases re-learnt:

Gribs and forecasts are often up to a force understated. It was a good call to leave early and accept mildly bad conditions early, so we were sure of our arrival weather window. We love single line reefing, and our mantra of ‘reef early and reef often’ kept us from a potentially messy situation. Finally it was again hammered home that the boat is far more capable than the crew!

 

We’ll probably leave next Tuesday to La Paloma, in Uruguay, 185 NM south.