Simpatico Bermuda Race 2014 posted by Shindig

image attached was taken yesterday in the height of the torrent. Crossing the gulf stream at the same time a front came through,,,,was amazing. Everyone is still recovering.

So I took a nap this afternoon and when I awoke I began my checks and I noticed that our primary battery bank was badly discharged. The starting battery was still good, engine was on, so i check the amp out put of the alternator and found zero. Was the belt slipping again? Didn't look or smell like it, could it be a fuse blew? So first things first, we began shutting everything down and planing to begin sailing without electricy. I got the chart out marked our position and began dead reconning. Once I was sure of our course, current position, heading et cetera, we decided to risk using some of our voltage to shut down the engine and enablilng me to check the belt and the connectors to the alternator. When we shut it down, I didn't here the normal low oil pressure warning buzzer, so RJ check the switch and it was already in the off position. We fired the engine back up with the switch in the run positon which in turn told the alternator to produce power and it did. W e were all excited that we'd have light and a hot dinner tonight plus we'd have all of your navagation equipment including the sat phone and blog. If I couldn't have gotten power back we would have simply gone to plan B sparing power for when we closed on land fall. Did you know that our head (toilet) is electric? Most boats this size have hand pumped heads, had we not been able to solve the mystry of the lost power, we would have had to being using a bucket. Tim had made a seat for one of the buckets so we had that going for us. Can you imagine balancing yourself on a bucket sitting on a bouncing, tilting bucking horse of a boat?

We have burned approximately 5 gallons of diesel fuel so far and since the weather is conducive, Tony and Ron added 5 gallons of our reserve diesel from one of our Jerry cans. That leaves us with 5 gallons in another can and a full tank and no adverse weather, we should be able to make Newport with the full tank. At the moment we are motor sailing and the apparent wind is approximately 30 degrees off our port bow. That wind is helping us go faster than we could go with just the motor running. The boat sails faster then she can motor.

With 191nm to go motor sailing at approximaely 7kts, thursday night or early Friday morning we could be in Newport. Depends on weather and equipment.

Steak tonight, chef Tony says it'll be the best we've ever had, we may find a bottle of red to go with it.

More later.