Day 224 Another nice day

Our position at 0720 is S25º59 X E172º49 and our 24-hour distance was 138 miles. Yesterday’s 20 to 25 knot wind and the smaller waves allowed us to make more progress. We are now farther west than our destination but our strategy is to play the weather. According to the GRIB forecast, another big high pressure area is now located between the east coast of Australia and the west coast of New Zealand with its center a bit north of the north coast of NZ. A high pressure is encircled with winds that blow anti-clockwise so the leading (eastern) edge will have winds from the south. We expect to encounter this wind in the early morning tomorrow. After the leading edge passes us, we will be in the middle of the system where there is less wind and we can make way southward. If we time it right, we will see the trailing edge of the system when we are two days out from NZ. At this point in the weather system the wind should be blowing toward the southeast and we can ride them to our destination.
There are two boats in front of us and we talk to them on the radio at 0800 and 1700 each day. One (Volaré) is about 4 days in front and the other (Piña Colada) is one day ahead. From their reports, we can validate the information we get from the Internet downloaded GRIB files. Volaré reported today that at 3AM this morning that they got hit with 40 knot winds from the southeast. While this was probably not a pretty thing to be in the middle of, it is consistent with the GRIB picture.
While Volaré is batting the cold wind 450 miles south of us, we are sitting in mild seas making our way south at 5½ knots under sunny skies. I’ll take our position over theirs.