Canary's approach
Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Tue 1 Oct 2013 03:03
30:59.27N 012:28.53W
0245z
1/10
Just 5 kn of breeze
from the NW, so motorsailing at 8kn SW with the Canary Islands just 100nm ahead.
A few perfect hours sailing today with both jibs and both mains up, close
reaching - on course - at 8.5 kn in just 7kn of wind.
An easy day on the
ocean, work continued on our new bilge/fire pump, with the "fire" part of it now
working - it'll pump sea water through to the deck outlets. The "bilge" side is
proving trickier (to pump from the bilge overboard) as today's testing was
filling up a grey water tank rather than the ocean. With limited tools, plumbing
parts and even less expertise, I do have confidence that the total
sum of knowledge between Robbo, Ryan and Jed will add up to a successful
result. Yet another example of a 2hr job on a boat taking 3 days to complete.
Currently there is only one bilge pump (aside from scared crew with buckets) in
the boat, which selectively can pump out of the choice of bilges. With our new
pump we will have a backup and I'll sleep more easily!
Another day of
fishing success and failure - we did get a healthy strike, but the lure in use
had covered the hook with its furry bits so a hook up wasn't possible and the
fish (huge I'm sure) just spat out the rubberised fish. We'll put this loss
down to equipment failure. I had virtually guaranteed the crew we'd catch a fish
a day, but never said anything about landing them! We still have plenty of
tinned sardines and tuna.
The days are getting
noticably warmer as we head to the lower latitudes, a pleasant sunset beer with
assorted munchies followed by steaks and mash and various other food items (that
I mostly don't recognise) prepared by Julie and Robbo. Very little boat motion
as the seas are quite flat, and motor sailing removes the rolling tendency, so
all crew fit and well and getting good sleep. We'll pass the Canarys tmrw,
hoping to get W of them, but if conditions not suitable will motor through the
middle (where the winds are reknowned for being tricky).
SJB