New Destination: Puerto Montt
07 February 2018 | Southern Ocean
Alan/rainy, cold and windy
The options were:
Puerto Williams (off the Horn): 1800 nm
Puerto Mont (43S 73W): 1600 nm first port on the coast above the Horn.
It has a marina, travel lift etc.....
Eastern Island: (1100nm) no good port, no facilities
Pitcairn: (1400nm) same as easter but worse (no port at all)
Gambier: 1600nm but no facilities
So the only decent choice is Puerto Mont. Puerto Williams means going to the Horn which is too dangerous in our disabled state.
It is far, especially since we'll have a hard time doing anything on port tack. It might take a month. I am hoping for 3 weeks if nothing further happens ruining our day! The next 3 days won't see any progress toward the goal but after that we should have several days of possible wind. I'll try not to venture more south than what we are now. Puerto Mont is due East of us.
I'm glad you didn't get Argentina tickets yet......
Morale is ok. Janneke is a trooper..... still smiling! I'm getting slowly out of disaster management mode. I kinda hate myself for letting this happen but in Raiatea I took the rudders out to have them inspected and fixed by Metalu. And there was absolutely no problem until it sheared off at the top. I have no idea what actually happened. I tacked the boat last night and it didn't stay on course so I tacked back blaming a windshift. Then on the other tack all was fine. SO I went back to sleep until this morning when we tacked and the same thing happened again. That's when I noticed the starboard rudder was missing. I don't know when it happened because we've been on port tack for several days.
We tucked 3 reefs in the main and have the staysail rolled going slowly North perpendicularly to our desired course. Outside is a nice Southern Ocean day: waves, rain, cold and windy. BUt inside we're cozy, listening to Bob Marley right now.