18-19 July Passage Blair Harbor to Kuantan Back to Malaysia East Coast Cruise 2005
18 Jul 05 Passage Blair Harbor to Nenasi Batu
Departed Blair Harbor at 0916 with light westerlies. Motor sailed until noon when the dark mean and nasty clouds in the west materialized into a Sumatran with 26 to 30 knot winds. With just a small piece of jib flying we were making 5.5 to 6 knots over the ground. The rainstorm kept us in it's grip for nearly two hours.
Following the Sumatran we had 12-15 knots of wind on the beam and good sailing to our anchorage along the shore at 'Batu' north of Nenasi. Put the hook down in 15' over sand at the location shown at 1742.
The day's run was 38.18 NM at 4.5K average speed.
19 Jul 05 Passage Nenasi Batu to Kuantan
Departed the anchorage at 'Batu' at 0618 (still dark) and began motor sailing into light westerlies (3-5 knots). Two hours later a grinding noise from the stern got our attention. Thinking we had fouled a line on the prop we reversed the engine and the noise quit. Back to motor sailing though the wind was now picking up to 6-8 knots. An hour later the noise began again so the engine was shut down, the cockpit locker unloaded to gain access to the shaft and stern tube and that's when the discovery of an overheated cutlass bearing was made. The conditions were too rough to go over the side for an underwater inspection but fortunately the wind was still increasing and we were sailing at 5 knots under jib and main sail.
Our weather was being influenced by feeder bands into Typhoon Haitang just making landfall west of Taiwan. At our location the winds were now tending to the south and the seas were running from the southeast ... not a good prospect for our intended anchorage.
Without propulsion it was not possible to enter the river leading to the city of Kuantan so we chose an anchorage used by other yachts in the past in front of the Hyatt Hotel. We sailed to anchor with 15 knots of wind from the south under jib then used the backwinded jib to set the anchor in 12 feet of water over sand with 125 feet of chain rode. It was now 1500 and the day's run was 38.15 NM (just shy of the previous day) at an average speed of 4.4 knots.
The anchorage was too rough to go over the side so we hunkered down and began pitching into the seas and wind. An hour later the wind was now up to 22 knots and the seas were running 6 feet. I'm sure we were putting on a show for the guests at the hotel as we bounced around.