Day 18 Johnny be Goode position 38:37.02S 148:22.47E
Mark_needler
Professional Skipper
Sat 18 Dec 2010 02:28
|
NZT 1515 / EST
1315 Nearly
there !! We are looking to clear Port Phillip heads this
evening some time and we will wait out the darkness at Queenscliffe Marina
before crossing the bay to Royal Melbourne YC, I can now tell you that I have
done lot longer deliveries but this has been by far the hardest fought to bring
JBG (Johnny be Goode)home. It was as if there was another obstacle
at every turn, we had our fair share of highs and
lows and I think we can all take some positives from the trip in so far that we
had to battle our way though together, learnt new skills and had a exhilarating
experience. To give an example of one of our cruel twist of
fate, our 1st Autopilot resigned after two days of well, pretty lousy service
really, that left us hand steering the eight days to Eden, by the time we got
there George had arranged a delivery of a brand new Autopilot who was supposedly
champing at the bite to be worked hard......James and I were ready to use it as
well after eight days of hand steering, ‘IT’ lasted 30 hours and then died a sad
withering death!! the bloody thing didn’t even have the common decency to just
drop dead it had the nerve to stay alive long enough to give us hope of a easy
last night before it kicked the bucket! (I can tell you that I have no generally
acceptable language to describe how I felt, so I
won’t!) Then the lights decide to do a runner as well
that on top of the expected weather not turning up really capped out day off. So
we had a bad night with head on wind and big seas but we got through it ok.
Morning had a different problem at about 0725 the engine stopped running and we
spent until now trying to get it started. It was a long time for both of us but
I was on shift from 0300 and this is the first time I’ve been down below since
then. It is nice to get inside if only for a couple of minutes.
So updated ETA we are expected to be at Port
Phillip Bay heads at 0200 / 0330 under sail only, even so it will be a site for
sore
eyes! Oh
Crickey!!! Cheers Mark and
James |