Crossing Tropic of Cancer

The Travels of Running Tide
Mick Norman
Sun 3 Feb 2013 12:48
22:44.01N 19:46.791W
 
Frisky sums up the weather over the last 24 hrs. We are down to a reduced head sail and a mizen and clocking up an easy 6kns. We have had our problems. Water ingress again.High energy water finds every chink in RT 's armour. A lot of water entered the rudder gear compartrment and was slopping into the rear cabin. So far we have stuffed a plug in the gas vent, not ideal and rescrewed down a ventilator. This seems to have solved most of the problem. Water is getting into the main bilge from somewhere but not such a major problem yet. Every is one surviving well though we are being thrown arond quite  a bit today.
 
Monica misbehaved int he nice causing a couple of involuntary jibes. With jibe preventor on we ended up in a sort of hove to unable to easily get out of the mess without using the engine. This means retreiving the squid lest we end up with it in the prop. So quite a busy night and not much sleep. A tightening of Monice's control lines has sorted that problem for now.
 
We were so nackered we missed the crossing of Cancer by three miles this morning. I think we will celebrate that event this evening with a drop of the hard stuff.
 
Total distance run since leaving Las Palmas is 402 miles in three days.