45:02.285N 07:37.111W

Day 2-3   10 - 12 Sept

A very busy couple of days. We managed 135 miles over the ground on day one, 148 on day two and so at present the eta for La Coruna is sometime around lunchtime on Saturday. Andy's sun sights with the sextant are still in and around our GPS course so it proves the old ways still have validity. I am still cheating by doing the sight with the sextant and then letting my phone app do the number crunching, best of both worlds I think.We shaped a course inside the TSS outside of Ushant and have since moved us eastward of our rhumb line into the bay by 20 miles or so which has kept all of the shipping safely over the horizon on our starboard side. What has been amazing is the amount of wildlife. The first night shift for Andy and Steve had a pod of dolphins playing around the boat for several hours to keep them company and little birds keep landing on the deck for a breather before heading off to who knows where. They are very tame and last evening one was even hopping over our laps in the cockpit while we had dinner. Yesterday afternoon I spotted our first whale. I think it was a pilot whale or something similar, for you whale twitchers out there it was brown with a blunt nose and about three to four times the size of the dolphins we have seen. Later that afternoon a pod of 5 – 10 of them cruised past going the other way which caused a stir aboard. Again this morning a hawk chased a little bird onto the boat so we ended up with a hawk sitting on top of the mast eyeing up the little bird which had found a spot under our spray hood and was having a snooze. The standoff went on for an hour or two with the little bird making several escape attempts and being chased back aboard by the hawk until eventually he managed to slip away undetected. That was three hours ago and the hawk is still sitting on our upper spreaders keeping an eye on things. Raising the spinnaker didn’t even phase him for long, and all that more than 80 miles from the nearest land.

All night we were having trouble trimming the sails and the boat needed 20-30 degrees of rudder on just to maintain course. I tried every combination of sails I could think of but she still persistently kept rounding up. As daylight approached we had a concerted effort to get the boat balanced but she just would not trim correctly. The realisation finally came that we had rudder problems. I checked the hydraulics, no leaks, and so it was wake Norma up as she was sleeping after doing the 3am to 6am watch and get at the rudder post under the rear berth. The first thing I saw was a loose nut lying next to the rudder post upper bearing. The yoke had vibrated free, even with double locking nuts, and was twisting on the post as the retaining key had slipped half out of its slot. So we had managed to trim her onto course right through the night at 6- 8 knots in 15-20 knots of wind for most of the time with little or no rudder!  With Andy turning the wheel gently under instructions passed up on deck by Norma, Steve and I managed to get it all lined up again as the rudder swung about in the seaway and so did we with a steady 1 meter swell passing under the keel. I did note that very hard moving metal and very soft squishy fingers really are not a match made in heaven. All tightened in well however with an absolute minimal amount of well directed swearing and after a quick count to make sure we had the requisite 40 digits still in place between the four of us Spectra set off again.

So here we are, 120 miles from La Coruna, weather gods still smiling, one night to go and the chocolate bar sweep stake has been set for predicted arrival times.

Sarah won the chocky bar for the predicted 24 hour mileage run over the first night out, and Norma won it for the second 24 hour run. Must be my turn soon, I am the blooming navigator!

Next blog from La Coruna with pictures I promise.

+ New flag number three up the mast ;-)