Day 3 Johnny be Goode position 34:19.29S 171:30.21E

Mark_needler
Professional Skipper
Thu 2 Dec 2010 22:42
Position time 1200NZT
 
Yesterday was an interesting day! we managed to hit the eastern side of Cape Reinga before midnight, which was about the time that the Autopilot (excuse the technical term) shit itself, and decided for the time being to take the rest of the night off!! bloody union workers...plus at the same time we were passing into the Tasman sea and it wasn’t good timing to say the least, the last thing I needed to do was go into the yacht and start taking electrical equipment apart in the early hours of the morning.....TIS (This is Sailing!) so the boy’s and I will be hand steering until one of two things happen 1/ I manage to fix it or 2/ I give the bloody thing a burial at sea and we spend the next 1400 nms hand steering  Doh!! I’m betting on it being fixed but time will tell.
 
On a more upbeat matter the Engine is purring away like a cat that’s got cream for life!, when we checked the fuel consumption it had only used 40 litres after 26.3 hrs of continual use, very good considering we were using it well. It may of been less but James threw 5 litres of diesel overboard whilst trying to refill the tank. However in mitigation the sea’s were fairly rough and it wasn’t an easier job for the two of them.
Leigh managed to catch three fish in the afternoon, the first Tuna wasn’t worth going to the effort of filleting it, the next was a Mackerel that decided he didn’t like the look of us and jumped back into the sea, finally he landed a good size fish which will be tomorrows lunch, a good result all things considered.
 
This is a special request from all the Guys on Johnny Be Goode, Dana could you please let us know how the Tomatoes are going and we are all really quite concerned that your paper is arriving on time! On the later point if you are still having problems text the Sat phone on the boat and we will call the person responsible......LOL
 
Everybody is in good health and spirits and at least two of us are getting closer to home.
 
Cheers
 
 
Mark, James and Leigh