Leak fixed at last
04 June 2010 | The North Atlantic
Graham
The sight of water gushing in under the floorboards, albeit in a controlled manner, is not the sight you really want to see when nearly 1000 Nm from land. This is the sight we have had for the last 5 days and has proved a major difficulty in tracking down. This morning, finally, I identified the problem as a split in a generator cooling water hose in a totally inaccessible place under a bulkhead. The split pipe cannot be seen, but the location of the split has been deduced after much deliberation. Since we cannot use our generator as it remains unserviceable, I have disconnected the offending pipework, and sealed up the seacock inlet with a bronze cape and PTFE tape. There has now been not a drop of water in sight for 24 hours and I can sleep sound again. Over the past 24 hours, we have seen five whales, which currently rates as more whales than ships! We are uncertain of the type, but suspect a mixture of Sei, Humpback and Fin whales. The one thing they all had in common was that they were much, much bigger than Quasar IV!. We are still trying to get to good photos, but they move at an incredible speed through the water so this is proving quite difficult but we will continue trying. When we left Bermuda, I had originally planned on getting to the Azores by following the Great Circle Route, the shortest distance between two places. This is also the most southern route for our journey. It can often be light on wind, but we were getting reports at the time from friends of favourable wind conditions. By the time we had escaped Bermuda after the sub-tropical storm, the conditions were clearly beginning to change and progress for our first week has been very slow in the direction that we need to go. We have now moved much further north up to 38 Deg 30 Mins north and we are getting very good windy conditions with a reasonably good sea state. The forecast for the next 4/5 days looks ideal for us and we estimate that we should manage about 600 Nm + over the next 5 days. This will have effectively doubled our speed towards the Azores and cheered us all up no end as the PG Tips and Tetley tea bags are running rather low! The weather is fine, and we have seen no rain, thunderstorms or icebergs now for in excess of 4 days. We shouldn't see any ice if we stay below 40 Deg North south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, so that is definitely our plan! All being well, we may arrive in the Azores in about 10 or 11 days, but that is merely a guess; we are at the mercy of the wind and sea, and you know how unpredictable the weather can be! Breakfast is about to be served, courtesy of Clare today, who is concocting a masterly mixture of rice and other goodies in the pressure cooker at the moment which will no doubt be consumed in a flash on deck. Dress on deck now? Daytime, shorts still OK for most of the day, but fleece essential. Nightime, long trousers, two fleece tops, sea boots, full Mustro waterproofs and woolly hats. So, we must be approaching England!