16 June

Elemiah's Atlantic Adventure
Ian Cole and Rosemary Bointon
Mon 16 Jun 2008 23:55
It is all getting closer. The list of jobs is getting shorter and we are down to the last few items.

Today's excitement started off with the arrival of a big ship next to where we were moored. We shuffled down the wharf and watched with trepidation as the monster advanced upon us. But the tugs did their job and she slid in far from our vulnerable bow sprit.



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Here we are being frightened by a great big ship.


After we went out on our sailing trials yesterday afternoon, we had made a list of new things that we discovered. The aft loo is still not working properly despite Ian spending two hours yesterday evening and Morgan spending all day trying to fix it. There were a number of problems including the seals and a nick out of the corner of a valve. But the last problem was the most difficult. There is a hair line crack in the plastic casing of the pump which means that the system is losing suction and so not working. Bill from Covey was tasked with finding a replacement as soon as possible. We'll see what he has found tomorrow.

Rodney spent his day fixing the gear lever which fell off - not such an easy problem to solve either but eventually solved on a temporary basis with the help of a Coke tin. Roger and Rodney cut it up to make two shims. We will have to replace the shafts for the gear lever and the throttle when we get to Europe.

This afternoon, the compass adjuster came. It was fascinating to see how he worked. We went out to a buoy and checked on the headings of our compass compared with accurate sightings. The compass was way out - 25 degrees on a heading of due south. He whittled down the deviation to 2 degrees.


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Here is the compass adjuster doing his job.

This evening, the man from Cummins came to change the cycles on the generator from 60 cycles to 50 cycles.

We have fired up the satellite phone with the help of Ed from mailasail and so we should be all ready to send out messages to you all from on board.

Now we are in the pub, curry is on the stove all ready for us to eat when we get back to the boat.

Ian has been in touch with the weather people and tomorrow may be our big day for leaving - we will let you know in the morning.

Rosemary and Ian