THE SMILE IS BACK!
Hi Folk,
"Sheer Tenacity" is happy to have her heart beat back, thanks
to the combined efforts of team Hout Bay ! (Justin,Jeremy & Rod!) My plea
for assistance with Mr Perkins, ( yes he has been downgraded from previous
title of" Lord Perkins", due to bad behaviour!), was immediately
taken up by Justin, who obviously hit the net, the phone and any other number
of contacts, including our long lost cruising buddy ,Jeremy. He was back in RSA on a home visit, for
Yvonnes mothers 90th birthday!
Justin and I exchanged emails between mid Pacific
and Noordhoek, before ageeing upon a
plan of action. Having isolated the poitive and negative wires between the
starter button and the relay, the idea was to check each separately, trace the
faulty circuit, and create a new starter switch using a new wire to replace the
faulty one, and ignoring the rest of the ignition loom. The problem was that
both pos and neg wire to the relay worked. I assumed it must be the relay, but
the spare in my spares locker had different poles for the high amp wires. I
checked the pos and neg wires on the new relay, and they went click at the
right moment. I decided to do the same test on the old one. It also went click
at the right moment! Damn, I thought, it must be somewhere between the relay
and the solenoid! But, last check.....does a click mean its making contact? I
made up 2 leads to match up the eyelet fittings from the old relay ,into male
push on fittings for the new one, wired it all up ... and a great happiness was
to be had on board! The old relay could talk the talk, but couldn't walk the
walk! Mary can now have her fridge back,
and Fred can get his daily recharge again, and the little Honda emergency
fellow, can go back to his locker!
Last
night we passed the 1000 mile to go mark, but the sea was far too uncomfortable
to even think of sundowners. Besides ,we were both still knackered from our all
night battle with the squalls, the previous night. Today is only mildly better,
but we have two reasons to celebrate, so we will make a plan! We were both able
to get some sleep last night, hence our determination to solve Perkies problem.
Our days run for this uncomfortable ride, was 155miles, leaving us a further
886 to go. A 6.5knot average ,in these huge lumpy seas is pretty impressive,
but we feel a bit battered and bruised, and are hoping it will calm down
soon! The gribs indicate at least
another 2 days of 20kn +, so I guess we will just have to live with it, and get
there sooner!
Love and
regards to all! , Rod
& Mary
Hi Folk,
Up
until last night, it has all been a huge adventure! Last night and today has set about balancing the
picture! It all started when I tried to start the engine for our evening
battery charge session. Nada! Clearly there is a wiring problem between the
ignition switch, the starter button, the starter relay and the solonoid. I know there are ways to bypass each of these
components, but I need to get some noddy language input from a mechanic or
knowledgeable guy to talk me through it. The engine is a Perkins Prima M60, and
any half decent mechanic could do it in one second. Dave at Southern Marine
would know. But I dont! I would love a quick simple instruction email on how to
do it!
While
taking out the little honda genset, to run in the cockpit, a few nasty squalls
appeared, which generated winds up to 25/28, and lots of rain. But that was only
the beginning.At about 9pm a big mother arrived, with winds of 35, huge seas,
and the real problem was a sudden 120 ded change in wind direction fromSE to N. It
blew like that all night, and all this morning. Mom and I are pretty knackered
haveing both been up all night, and most of the morning too, The wind now seams to hav settled back to a
24/5 knot easterly, with huge following seas, making our slow down wind passage
bloody uncomfortable. Hopefully the gribs will tell us when it will all calm
down, sor that we can get on with trying to fix the engines electrical problem,
and make progress towards the Marquesis. Despite all the chaos, we still posted
134nm, leaving us 1044 nm to go. A couple of good days are needed now to
restore the wah.... plus some notes on how to start the perkins... please? love
and regards , Us
Hi Folk,
Another
good day under the belt, (Day 12 ,167nm), but when it came to plotting our
position onto our paper charts, I needed to change pages, from #62, to #607,
which revealed another huge expanse of ocean which still lies ahead! Granted ,
it is on a larger scale, which, until one starts plotting daily runs, just
looks huge!! Not a bad thing actually, as it re-inforces quite how far out, and
remote we are, which serves as a timely reminder, to pull in ones horns a bit!
Yesterday we took a good look at the remaining slab of the mainsail, from the
3d reef to the headboard, and spotted a rather shiney and thin bit of sail
cloth in the middle of one panel. We realised that this was the result of it
rubbing against the old crows nest, which used to sit on the first stb
spreader. (We removed it in Grenada, when we first got there) Suddenly, the
thought of losing the rest of the mainsail, took on a different perspective. So
while we were sailing along on relatively flat seas, I donned the climbing
harness,and using topping lift as a safety line, climbed up the mast on the steps, from which
I was able to apply "sticky back" sail repair strips to either side
of the vulnerable section. For the last day or so, the winds have been blowing
between 15 and 25 knots , and the seas have built a little more, creating a
beam swell, which not only makes life a little more uncomfortable, but also
puts a whole heap more pressure on the autopilot ,to keep us on track. The wind
is at present ,on the beam as well, and given our smaller mainsail, we have now
dropped the staysail, and trimmed the genoa, to reduce the strain on the
autohelm, as well as ourselves! We are still managing about 6.5 knots, but
without any of the adrenalin pumping 8 -9 knot surfs!
We now have about 1160 miles to go, and should be able to
celebrate getting down to below 1000 , sometime tomorrow evening. By then, we
will also have crossed the 120Deg W longitude, and should, in theory, be
winding the clock back yet another hour!! We are now 7 behind UTC, and 9 behind
RSA, so the next change will bring us up to 10! We then only have to average
about 130nm per day, to get to Fatu Hiva in another 8 days. So, whats the rush?
Take it carefully , and look after the boat and ourselves for the next week or
so!
Love and regards to all,
Rod &
Mary
Goodness, gracious me! I turned my back for a few days and you manage to get below 1000 miles ;-)
ReplyDeleteTenacious crew!!