Hi,
My experience - 5 trips - is that it's very hard to go west to east across the bottom. I have done it once and since always prefer to go clockwise around
Australia. The prevailing easterlies along the south coast make it almost impossible except in a hard beat to windward. Some
head for Tasmania, but that's still a beat. You have two swell patterns to contend with - the big SW swells and then whatever easterly swell is churned up by the
wind.
It is of course shorter across the bight, and it is possibly viable at the change over of the seasons (if you are lucky), as the high pressure cells move down out of the continent at the end of
winter; alternatively as the highs move up on to the continent at the end of summer. You have to watch the
weather patterns, but this can be October, or end of March / April. I have just done the trip, east to west, last March, and had easterlies all the way - and a very lumpy sea. My previous trip was 5 years ago, early-mid April, and I had light westerlies. Had to
motor much of the way, but it would have been viable to go west to east at that time. I know of several
boats that crossed from West to East last Sept / Oct. You have to watch the
weather patterns - you want a high centered up along the coast so light westerlies. You have to be prepared to
motor and prepared to weather one or two cold fronts.
Good luck
Dave
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