12 October 2007, Sydney.

Well things worked out well. The brunt of the bad weather that was forecasted was delayed and when we approached the pilot station there was only 30 knots blowing. That meant the harbor would be calm of wind as it is sheltered. It blows in Sydney harbor from every direction except from the ENE and that was the wind direction today. So we got in as quickly as possible and were docked nicely on time. The chief officer put an extra number of mooring ropes in case the wind would pick up during the day, which it only did a little bit, so nothing to be worried about. It was not a great day in Sydney but at least we made it.

We were together with two other ships. The Norwegian Dawn on the first anchorage and the Black Watch supposedly at the 2nd anchorage. However she decided to anchor much further out, so far, that in the drizzle we could not even see her. That meant an awful long tender ride for those guests to the shore.

During the day the weather forecasts were advising that the winds would not reach their peaks of 50 knots but would not come higher then about 40 knots. That was good news of course but still 40 knots over the open ocean is a lot. The frontal system was to come through in the mid evening and that would mean that the swells would not reach such great heights as the sustaining winds would change direction from the NE to the SW.

I was trying to get out as quickly as possible after all the tours were back on board, as the more time I would have at sea, the lower average speed I would have to run and the smoother the ride would be. However we had to wait until the Norwegian Dawn had gotten herself out of the way as she was lying exactly and fully across the fairway. After some pilot to pilot conversation, the ship finally started moving and I could slip by. As we are both tall ships it looks as if we are passing very very close even when we are over 1000 feet apart.

Coming out in the open, the swell did not look that bad but we still had the banks to cross around Cape Breton. So I could promise the guests a reasonably smooth ride later during the evening but the first bit was going to be a bit wobbly. The problem with the banks is that the shallowness of the water makes the swells run shorter and more pronounced and that makes the ship move more erratically. Even the stabilizers then have a hard time keeping up. So I had advised the guests at my departure announcement that it was going to be wobbly for a while. It is however hard to explain how the ship will exactly move and for how long.

The frontal passage final came near midnight. It brought torrential rains for awhile and then the wind shifted to the SW. At once the ships movement became less as the swells were no longer whipped up any longer. The ship kept moving of course as it will take sometime for the swells to die down. That won’t be until late tomorrow evening as they had quite a bit of wind in the Halifax area as well.

For us it looks good. Apart from the ocean swell, the weather is to improve and after some drizzle in the morning, it supposed to remain overcast in Halifax but with little wind and that helps the wind-chill factor.