TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

Today started off for me hand steering on the 6-9AM watch, as we’re trying not to work the batteries so hard. That’s because, you see, no cruise si complete without its share of equipment failures, which thus far for us includes watermaker (worked when tested in the Bay, useless now, but no problem as we have ample water), and now engine — which took a shot of saltwater up the exhaust that was not caught by the anti-siphon device. Capn’ Jim and Pete tore the engine down, cleared the water from the injectors, and reassembled the engine. So far, still no joy. Working through the various possible issues now, and hope to the deisel going soon. Menawhile, the generator is fine, and we’re cutting back on current draw just in case. Fridge off some (it was getting too cold anyway), hand steering (Otto the Autopilot pulls juice), and, of course, no power hog watermaker to worry us.

This was a shifty day wind-wise, as the NW winds we rode out of Norfolk petered out early, and we wallowed a big waiting for the expected Northerlies. That meant squall-watching.(and perverse hopes that one would run over us and rinse down our rather salty foredeck — also encrusted with the occasional flying fish. We reefed early just in case, but in the end, we got bracketed and the squalls brought Northerlies that got more and more robust as the day wore on. By evening, we were running down 150 degrees for our turn mark to go South with 25 knots and a following sea. This delivers miles at the expense of a certain amount of rocking and rolling, but everybody’s more or less gotten used to the motion by now.