18:09.5N 44:51.0W 2nd December - Up the mast again
The Snark on The ARC
Ben Little
Wed 2 Dec 2009 22:58
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Hi Folks,
After a lumpy night where we made good ground
despite a very conservative sail set, the crew awoke to a to-do
list. First order of play was to check and see if the Generator was still
charging from the main engine or did we have more work to do, the answer is no
it does not charge from the main engine, so what to do. More time in
the aft locker playing with wiring in a hot environment smelling of Diesel what
fun! In the end we decided to re wire the solar panels to charge the Generator
battery. So far they do not seem to have made much impact but I did wait
till late in the day to complete the job, however we shall see tomorrow if it is
working. Today we had generator power but it still seems to take a long
time to charge the batteries, I suspect having the autopilot on and the water
maker is also a big drain on power from the batteries and this makes the
charging process longer. We are a power hungry bunch with 3 pc's going,
sat phones, music, rice cooker etc etc. So hopefully the generator saga is
over but I will get this checked and a better solutions fixed in St Lucia when
we get there as the Solar panels are not always rigged up.
Second up, was a creak in the rudder where the
emergency tiller pokes up through the deck. I am not sure how structurally
important this fixture is but after I had tightened 3 of the six bolts the
movement stopped so problem solved? Actually no we found that the last bolt had
actually sheered through. The remaining bolts are more than adequate to
secure the movement but glad we found it sooner rather than later. The
spare bolts we are carrying are not long enough for the job and rather thin in
fact. The process of daily checks in finding issues seems to be working
and I am happy to say we find things so far before they become
serious. I am pleased that when we checked the rudder it was
not just one good bolt rather than one bad.
Third, was fixing the connection the mast cars at
the top of the main sail. I have had running problems with this all summer
and thought I had solved the problem several times, I have replaced the
ties again this time with strong line and hope that they hold. I will
again look for a more permanent solution when we get to St Lucia, for now I
think they will be more than secure for the 5-6 days we think we have
left. We also found a nut had worked loose from another mast car further
down the mast, again easy to fix now we see it early. In order that we
don't lose an hour or suffer a penalty for using the engine while we don't have
to I went up the mast while we were under sail to fix both the problems.
For me it is no big deal and I am quite happy with the heights, however the
Chafe is another issue. Coleen has even hauled me up the mast before when
we broke the main halyard in Greece, that took a long time I am amazed she did
it, grit and determination. A lot more comfortable this time as I have a
new climbing harness rather than the old bosons chair we used back then.
We had a professional rig inspection when we were in St Lucia and the chap
(Jerry the Rigger) used an old fashioned bosons chair, I find them both
uncomfortable and scary as I keep slipping off it.
The rest of the afternoon was a lazy day reading
books and watching the sunset which was magnificent tonight. The wind and
heavy seas have really dropped of today through I think they are due to come
back within 24 hours, we were down to only 10 knots during dinner and it swung
around directly behind us which sailors amongst you will know is not very
helpful, as I started this paragraph it was up to 17 knots and we had almost 9
knots of boat speed. A bit erratic but I hope it stays between 15-20 which
is the most fun for sailing in. More and at night I don't get much sleep,
less and our speed drops off dramatically, The outlook for the next 3
days looks positive once we get past this lull. We rather squandered
the good wind of the past 48 hours by hard reefing the sail but we were tired
and did not feel like hard nights sailing, also fixing the generator seemed
highest priority during the day.
A quick position update before I close.
1834 Nautical Miles travelled at around 7.5 knots
average speed.
957 Miles to go to St Lucia which suggests about
another 6 days afloat averaging 7 knots which with the more variable wind
forecast seems likely.
I am also sending some pictures of the fix it
activities and sun set on a separate email.
bye for now
Ben
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