Crossing the Indian Ocean, west to east

[sheepstations]

I am a delivery skipper investigating the prospect of taking a modern, 50' power cat from the Seychelles to Darwin. I'll be the first to admit, although I have sailed around the Seychelles, this is a substantially different beast. The trip would be ~6,000M by the time the final destination is reached. Cruising speed would be in the vicinity of 7kts at 1300rpm. I'd expect that fuel bladders would have to carried to extend the range.
Departure is planned for October so that might be the first hurdle, cyclone season around northern Australia.
I am posting this in the hope that sailors with some experience of such an east-west Indian Ocean crossing might be able to weigh in with some advice (perhaps, don't do it!) as to expected weather conditions, potential refueling stopovers, route advice, etc.
If you'd experience of a blue water passage on a power cat, I'd be interested to hear your viewpoint too.
Cheers.

[HankOnthewater]

Hi sheep stations
You are right, an October start coincides with the cyclone season as well.
There are not much refueling options for you. Maldives/India is going too much north maybe. Sri Lanka.... don't think there is much fuel to be had there. Cocos islands and Christmas island are in your path.
But all the way you would have headwinds, wet and uncomfortable and expensive in fuel.
If it was a sailing boat, I would go at least 1500 NM south and catch the westerlies to West Australia. Then travel up to coast of WA, again with following SW to SE winds. Just thinking without doing the calculations, even with a powerboat ..........go south, refuel at Mauritius, maybe another 500 Nm south depending on the winds then, and then head west. Refuel in WA again. Only doable when your range can be at least 3500 NM.
I think this southerly route is doable even with an October start.

BTW have you ever tried the explain your CF name to non-Aussies?

[El Pinguino]

My boat has done most of it, I have done a bit of it on my boat, and quite a lot of it in the day job that I had back in the dream time.

Previous owners of my boat crossed from Aden to Sri Lanka to Phuket. They did that during the North East Monsoon which starts in about October. From the day job I just remember very settled conditions during the NE monsoon.
I took her from Phuket via Singapore and Sunda to Carnarvon and onwards.
That was about April, we motored almost the whole way to the eastern end of Bangka island and picked up the SE trades in about 4 degrees south.
Stay north of Java and cyclone season will only be an issue when you drop down from Indon to Darwin

[mcarthur]

No direct experience to relate, but I'd love to hear of the trip!

We have a 50' powercat (decidedly not modern!). I'm sure you know you'll need a lot of fuel, as my guess is at 7kn you're close to 1.2-1.4 litre per nm?

You could do what the Leopard PC delivery skippers did from South Africa to the Caribbean and run on one engine at a time - if your off-engine gearbox allows freewheeling. Demonstrably better overall consumption at these speeds.

I can't see you getting out of a fuel stopover though, so you've really only got the choice of north (Maldives) or south (Mauritius?), or resupply from a submarine .

As another powercat owner, it seems often better to do the opposite of sailing boats and hug the inner edge of the doldrums to get the additional current along with flatter oceans vs stern seas. But I haven't got evidence it's better and I haven't seen/done that analysis for the Indian Ocean either.