41:57.7N 70:39.9W

 

On the way out of Boston Harbour the starboard engine room bilge pump alarm went off.  Thank goodness for bilge alarms. Without them Anastasia would have filled with water a couple of times in the past.

 

What happened was that the connection between the engine cooling seawater hose and the transmission gear cooler had separated and seawater was spurting into the engine room.  It was simple enough to stop the leak by turning off the seawater intake stopcock, but there was no way to repair the fracture and we were faced with having only one engine for manoeuvring, which is possible but not simple with a catamaran. 

 

To make the starboard engine usable I cut the good connector off the gear cooler and used it to join the two seawater hoses, bypassing the cooler completely.  Now we can use the starboard engine for short periods of time, until we can get another cooler shipped to us somewhere.

 

Plymouth is a good place for a stopover.  The harbour masters are really helpful and they lent us a private mooring because we were too big to go on a town mooring.  I think they quite liked have Anastasia moored close to the town dock, for the tourists to look at. 

 

This time the Mayflower II was back on her dock so we could take a tour.  She is a replica of a trading ship of that time, not necessarily identical to the original Mayflower but probably close.  Built 60 years ago, she really has the feel of a working ship, everything utilitarian, nothing fancy or luxury.  They had people onboard in period dress talking about life on the ship.  The captain really got into the role, we could have spent an hour listening to his tales.

 

In the captains cabin on Mayflower II

 

Camilla at the wheel of Anastasia

 

Bypassing the transmission oil cooler