Day 9
Innamorata
Steve & Carol
Mon 22 Jan 2024 16:40
Luckily we didn’t get squalls overnight and the winds were lighter allowing the sea to reduce a bit. This morning we had a couple of mini squalls and now the wind is back up a bit at around 20 knots.
We have been using the windpilot a lot of the time, generally it does a great job but we have had the rudder clog with sargassum weed and move back ( a feature to stop it breaking if it hits something or is under too much strain) this has caused a few hoolies but as soon as we release it and hand steer we can get it going again when sorted - that is Steve sorts it out!
This morning Steve looked at changing the drive unit on the autopilot, we have a spare we have never used, however it is not really possible while going along and with the wave motion etc. It’s too difficult to get to nuts etc and somewhat dangerous with tools flying around so we have decided the old unit will stay in situ and get used only when conditions dictate the windpilot can’t cope!
We are not he a little sleep deprived but I have just had a few hours and Steve is trying to sleep now!
We lost the 2 catamarans on AIS during the night, had a yacht not on AIS pass a mile or so behind us and today we are following a French boat who is currently 8 miles away, we have never had so many boats around us on a crossing and it’s fun to try and work out if we know can guess the name of the boat thats popping up on the screen before the name is displayed!
At 16.00 we have just over 700 miles to go. ETA in Martinique is Saturday morning.