Day 16 of Atlantic Crossing
Swiftwing
Mon 10 Dec 2007 21:29
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Lat/Lon at 1200 GMT: 16:40.58N
42:42.02W
With Dougie well established
as the boat's cook, a good number of the small parachutes spliced on to the sea
anchor, Neil's pride restored after his catch and everyone well rested for
a change, in spite of the night watches, things were going well today. I even
had time (and the inclination) to do some washing and Dougie found the time to
read! In fact, the full extent of our problems were the handset of the satellite
phone playing up - we suspect a bad connection - and the confusing matter
of our GPS units directing us North of East, when St. Lucia is actually a few
degrees South. We checked the paper charts and found we were right,
we should be bearing slightly South. As a final check, we coaxed the
temperamental, moody and very fragile Raymarine Chartplotter into life.
It agreed with the humans so that was that. We're not sure what's wrong with the
GPS's, as we used the same coordinates for everything. It'll be interesting to
see what happens when we reach the waypoint. Still, on such a fine day we
allowed ourselves a can of precious Coke with lunch (toast with peanut
butter or slightly fermented jam).
The good mood lasted untill
teatime (another exellent corned beef based dish), and we were confident that we
would get through the day without any mishaps. Not so.
When one of the ropes
connecting the self-steering gear to the tiller snapped with a twang and a
sudden change of course, noone was too surprised. After all, the ropes had been
fraying for a few weeks. The only real surprise was that it hadn't happened in
the middle of the night.
After a frenzied (well, sort
of) rush to make the repair before dark, we were back on the self steering gear
before Neil finished his cup of tea. Lets hope it stays that way, nobody likes
helming at night.
John
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