Passage to Rio Grande

At midnight the seas were still rough and the wind was steady at SSE F7. Kiriwina was romping along with about half the staysail deployed.

At 04:00 conditions had improved somewhat. Till now we had been keeping at least 25 miles off the coast. We altered to a northerly course directly for Rio Grande. Now deploying 3/4 of the staysail.

Conditions continued to ease. At 08:00 it was fine and sunny with the wind S-SW F5. The staysail was taken in and 3/4 yankee deployed.

At 12:00 we were having a lovely sail. Moderate seas, long swell. Wind S-SW F5. Full Yankee.

By 16:00 I began to wonder if we would loose the wind. After easing to F2 for a while it settled back to F4 Rio Grande was visible on the horizon and we were running under full main and yankee.

At 18:00 we were just over 4 miles of the harbour entrance with a falling wind and slight sea and swell. Our approach lay to the south and west of the main ship channel and we diverted into the fairway at the harbour entrance.

Number 6 fairway buoy at Rio Grande in very favourable conditions.
ARG01

Big ship exiting the harbour.
ARG02

Overview: Rio Grande harbour entrance.
RGEnt

West breakwater.
ARG03

East breakwater.
ARG04

At the entrance there was a strong flood tide. Just inside Kiriwina's shaft coupling began to fail.

Starboard buoy with strong tidal tail inside the breakwaters.
ARG05

However, there is ample space outside the ship channel on either side for small craft to anchor. Fortunately I was able to nurse the coupling until we reached a safe anchorage well inside the outer harbour. At 20:15 the coupling failed completely and we anchored of a shipyard clear of the chip channel in 4.3 metres.

I attempted to call harbour control and Rio grande pilots on channel 16 but got no reply.


Outer harbour container berths.
ARG06

Sunset over the shipyard.
ARG07

Rio Grande outer harbour looking seaward.
ArrRG13

We seemed safe enough so I decided to stay put for the night and see what tomorrow brings.

Trip log 215 miles.
Passage time 2 days and 2 hours. No bad considering that we lay ahull for around 7 hours.
LaPaltoRG