So what did we see today? Sea, sky, clouds, sun and flying fish.
The big event for day 10 was passing our half way point. There’s more than one way to define half way and we chose the point where the distance we’d covered matched the distance we had left to go. These two figures matched around 10:35pm during my night watch. We’d agreed to be all up for it and celebrate at that time rather than wait for the next day. I woke Helen and John and we popped the cork on a bottle of bubbly when the numbers matched. 1,463nm covered, 1,463nm to go.
The wind remained too high and the seas too bumpy for me to attempt rigging a new outhaul so we remain on a reefed main. Winds have died down overnight so hopefully today I can put one in as we now need it to maintain a decent boat speed.
It’s become significantly more difficult to find good times to get emails in and out via the radio as the nearest station is over 2,000 miles away. I’m still able to work stations 4,000 miles away which suggests the ones in New Zealand may become useful soon.
Apart from the outhaul the boat appears fine. I am watching the pin holding the boom to the gooseneck as it keeps working it’s way up to the cotter pin and putting pressure on it. This may be normal but I’m obsessing it as this could be a point of failure that could cause us a real hassle. I’ve rigged a line to prevent the boom from falling too far if the pin works it way out.
Another minor issue is my main amp counter for the house bank is counting the amps out faster than it counts them in. We’ve been charging solely on wind, sun and cross charging from the drive bank for the last 9 days. Normally the house bank would get a strong burst from the main charger each time we do a wash and the subsequent days solar charging often triggers a reset. Without the reset the meter thinks the batteries are dangerously low but the voltage remains handsomely high no doubt in a large part to the amount of amp hours we’ve made from wind generation. In the end it’s the volts that count so this remains a niggling concern which will solve itself once we arrive in Fatu Hiva and we play catch up on the washes. I’m denied Helen use of the washing machine at sea as I don’t want to put pressure on the bearings while we’re tossing around at sea. Fixing the machine will be hell so it’s to be treated very carefully and used only in a calm anchorage.
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