THE WIND RETURNS
Aquila
Alan and Sarah Bennett
Sun 15 Jun 2008 16:36
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45:18.90N 30:39.30W
Noon-noon run:119 miles.
It being Father's day, the skipper was touched to
receive a card from Philippa - thanks Pipps. And Sarah says Happy Father's
day to Robert! A mixed 24 hours with regard to the wind. By
1400 yesterday there was a zephyr from the west, and the skipper deemed the slop
in the sea to have died sufficiently for the asymmetric to be given another
airing. Within 30 minutes the zephyr had filled in sufficiently to give us
5-6kts throught the water under this rig; indeed, by 1730 it was blowing W2-3,
requiring the asymmetric to be replaced by the genoa - the former is very light
material, and we do not want to blow it out! A 1900 shift to the WNW
enabled the main to be set, and we enjoyed a superb supper of chicken fricasie
in bright sunshine at 4-5 kts.
However, during the night the wind died almost
completely, enabling Ian to only travel 10 miles during his 3 hour watch.
Then, just as Alan took over at 0500, a NNW 2-3 sprang up, and gave us a steady
7kts through the water for the next 4 hours. The wind is veering now, and
forecast to go all the way round to the south in the next 24hrs; right now
we are close hauled on port tack with 1 reef in the main and 4 rolls on the
genoa, steering 100M. When the wind heads enough to force us down to 130M,
we will tack - probably sometime this evening.
The usual run of on-going repairs continue.
It transpires that the fresh water foot pump had been leaking badly for some
time. After a 2 hour struggle, a replacement was fitted - the
struggle being that it was a different mark to its predecessor, necessitating
new holes to be drilled in a very inaccessable location for the new locating
bolts. Fortunately, the ample reserve of fresh water that we
embarked in Bermuda will mean that the water wasted does not leave us
embarrassingly short - but a nasty surprise, none the less. Then,
for some reason yet to be diagnosed, Gilbert
decided to blow a fuse again this morning. Another replacement has been
fitted, but it is a bit of a mystery - the fuse is rated at 35A, and at 8kts
Gilbert is rated to generate c.20A. If this goes on we will be
manufacturing fuzes! Lastly in the repairs department, Ian tracked down a
disconnected lead in the shower sump pump as the cause of another
malfunction. As the saying goes, cruising is all about fixing boats in
exotic locations (if you can call the mid atlantic exotic!)
To round this period off, we had a chat on the VHF
with a 48,000 ton tanker passing 4 miles on our port beam, taking refined
products from St John's, Newfoundland to Rotterdam, . A Danish line by the
name of Torn, the OOW was very friendly, asking if there was anything we needed
- and what on earth we were doing out here! Sarah said she'd been
wondering too!
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