Our daily run up to 14:00 has given us 155Nm by log towards Las Palmas, we are steering 135M which is our direct course on a reach with a F4 NW blowing.

 

That is about all the good news I am afraid as we suffered more gear failure last night.

 

Firstly although our steering linkage chain was expertly repaired by a French yachtsmen named Christian who was also berthed at Mohammedia, the chain has still been slipping from the drive cog when the autohelm is engaged. We have tried increasing the chain tension further but believe there is a misalignment in the system which is causing the problem. This has meant continous hand steering overnight when we had a large beam swell and up to 26knots of breeze on the beam to contend with. We have recently gone back to auto as the wind and swell have eased.

 

We suffered further sail damage when the genoa split in the upper 3rd of the sail and then part of the luff detached. The sail is currently furled as best as possible until we can lower this to deck. We should be able to fly our Gennaker or Code 0 in the next day or so which will help with boatspeed as we are limited to around 6 knots with the main only hoisted.

 

So it has been a tale of woe and not for the first time this trip, it just goes to show what can go wrong even with plenty of planning and good preparation.

 

The list for our arriving ARC crew at Las Palmas just gets longer!

 

We have managed to order a new steering system drive chain from Jefa with the help of Hanse UK, this will be delivered to Las Palmas next week.

 

We did enjoy our short stay in Morocco and found an excellent restaurant near the Yacht Club.

 

We also met other sailors doing similar journeys to ourselves including Boda from Mistral and Lucas and Lars from Sweden who were sailing their 27foot boat to the Caribbean.

 

Dave Sturrock