05:37:64S 119:43:63W

The Adventures of Sunboy the Sailboat
Al Sparkes and Deb Swain
Wed 2 Jun 2010 17:53
Day 10

Sad news this morning guys, arthur the auto pilot has crapped himself so we are now faced with just over 1200 miles to landfall to hand steer all the way and then another 750 odd miles to Tahiti before we can find a technician who might be able to help us. Such is life on the sea.

So apart from that little dilemma we are still making excellent passage time. We concluded day 10 this morning having made 1819 miles being of course, an average of 181.9 miles per day and we seemed to be increasing that average day by day. Not sure if we can maintain the 190 to 200 miles per day from here on in as we may need to reduce sail a bit to make it a bit easier on the helmsperson but we will see how things go.

We still have pretty good winds this morning and the seas do seem to be lessening a tad. Still the occasional doozy that makes the heart rate rise a bit but most of them are going in the right direction. We are still on a broad reach with 2 reefs in the main and up until this morning about 5.00am we had the headsail furled for the night to allow the auto pilot to manage the conditions. We now have the headsail completely unfurled and we are maintaining speeds well over 8 knots with a top speed this morning of 12.6 knots, surfing down a wave of course.

We had our half way party yesterday, having crossed the 1525 mark the night before so we donned on our party masks, had some coca cola, pringles, Lindt chocolate, M & M's and freshly baked muffins to get that party a really happening thing. No alcohol to mix into the drinks as we are being very well behaved and maintaining our dry boat policy whilst on passage, which is of course very good for onese waistline as well!!! Layni and Nikki spent the rest of the day talking about setting up their bedrooms when we get home. Nikki plans on moving to the downstairs room and Layni will then get to have her old room and be able to access what was Nikki's old room as well so both of the girls will have huge bedrooms and private areas so they were on a right old roll yesterday, getting very excited about how they would decorate and furnish their respective areas.

No sealife to gaze upon for the past 24 hours apart from the few little birds that swoop in and out of the waves, searching for food. Was thinking to myself, why on earth would these little creatures be way out here, thousands of miles from anywhere when they could be safetly tucked up in some nice island lagoon, chilling out and taking life very easy, then with more thinking to myself, I realised that they are probably thinking exactly the same things about us :)

The skies are just starting to clear which makes the day so much better. Heavy clouds and rain make the ocean look so dark and dreary and I think that carries over to the boat and crew so if the sea gods are going to shine upon us we would like the same winds please, lots of sunshine, smooth seas and some little angel to come aboard and wave a magic wand over our autopilot.........as if.

Happy to report all are well on board, the next few days will test peoples patience and resilience I think but Nikki came up with a very good suggestion as far as implementing a new watch system is concerned. At the moment we are all doing 3 hour watches and her suggestion is that she and Luke will split their watches so each person does 1.5 hours on the helm and then at the end of that 6 hour period, Debs and I take over and do the same. In principal, the idea is great so will see how it goes.

So, as I said, just over 1200 miles to go, doesnt sound much if you say it quickly and sounds far less than 1920 kilometres so look forward to reporting to you tomorrow with no further tales of woe and plenty of good stuff to chat about. Till then..................