Hey what a guy, thank you, from the polywog. I am guessing that is a negative term for a newby. Coming from you I accept.
Thanks for the weather news we are doing what you recommenced. We are motoring through the doldrums up 28 West. When we get to the trades we will crack off and try to follow them to the Azores. Thanks,
Everyone else,
We had a rough day today. I was on watch till 5AM last night to let the skipper (Ni) catch up on his sleep, it was a good thing because today he needed it.
When I was awoke around 7AM we had a couple of things to be happy about we were crossing the equator and we were actually sailing not motorsailing. But because we were sailing no one wanted to stop and celebrate by taking a swim we just wanted to keep sailing. We crossed @ 28 West, I got the photo and quickly went back to bed until around 9:30. At that point I was pretty rested and had coffee as we usually do. Around 10:30 the auto pilot started having problems with it's compass giving us messages and shutting down.
While we were trying to figure that out we decided to make water because the tanks were very close to empty and we were sailing if not slowly at least sailing we could charge up the batteries and make water at the same time. Then the day got busy, the generator would not start. This was pretty serious we have to make water on this trip not to mention electricity for the refrigeration. We only have a minimum supply of bottled water.
After doing the trouble shooting in the manuals and seeing the error message the Onan generator gave us we understood that there was no raw water going through the system and proceeded to work the problem. Around 4:30 we finally tried to start the engine again and it worked after we had changed the impeller and cleared all the parts of the broken impeller out of the raw water system. The 5 hours it took to do this was mainly caused by the construction/installation of the generator itself. The way the Onan genset is packaged in it's box and installed under the forward bunk of the port ama makes it almost impossible to work on. It was quite a battle with Ni and Ray doing most of the bruising and grease monkeying around with Babaloo and I working the helm and fetching the equipment and tools as required. It was definitely a four man day. No one did any E-mail or read any books today.
Any way hot, sweaty, bruised, greasy and tired we ate some crackers and sausage with peanut butter and tuna sandwiches while making water so we could take showers. As the sunset we finished up the showering and everyone agreed those showers were especially gratifying. Soon we gathered around the big screen to watch the 1st part of the 1st year of Boston Legal before we started the all night driving in earnest.
It is now 3AM I did my 12 AM to 2 AM watch tending the helm. So much for doing E-mail, watching movies and reading while on watch or just about anything else.while on watch for the rest of the trip.
All for now,
Randy
/EX