Passage Report 8
Noon Position 19deg. 13’N. 054 deg. 24’ W.
Course – 252 Degrees Speed – 12.3 Knots Day’s Run – 277 Miles
Weather – Cloudy with occasional sunny intervals. 74 degrees
Wind – 12-14 knots from SSE
Yesterday afternoon’s perfect sailing conditions continued until about 5 o’clock when the wind began to ease and the forecast was showing only light breezes during the night. It was obvious that if we were going to avoid another night of frustration, then we had to get the propeller out of its feathered position.
We furled the genoa, dropped the main and mizzen, stopping the boat and holding her head to the wind with the bow-thruster. Riccardo and I donned the scuba gear and descended to grapple with the blades. We could see that they had gone past the correct position and we grabbed one each and tried to turn them as the boat was rising and falling slowly in the swell. It took a couple of attempts to move them past the critical point where the usual hydraulic function took over again and we had succeeded.
Riccardo took a “selfie” showing the blades in the correct ‘neutral’ position in the background!
Happy days. We motor-sailed through the night with genoa and mizzen in another star-filled night augmented with meteors from the Geminid shower which is happening this week.
The sailing has been fantastic today as well with the rare (for this area) southerly winds giving us more fast reaching. Less than 500 miles now to English Harbour.
Greetings,
Peter and crew
