Steady Progress and Toilet Problem

The sailing was steady for the rest of the day from noon to midnight. By midnight the wind had dropped to 8 knots but it was enough to keep the boat moving at 3.7 knots with only a no. 4 jib to pull us along. (We were running with a reduced jib to minimize agitation and stress to the rigging and sail during those regular bouts of heavy rolling.)

Most of my afternoon was dedicated with the toilet. Arnold confirmed my initial impression that although the refurbished toilet flushed beautifully, it would not pump out. I dismantled the pumping mechanism and asked Arnold for a peer review. We compared every replaced part with the original and confirmed that they were identical. We confirmed that all parts had been installed correctly because they have been cleverly designed to be "idiot proof". In the end we thought that we understood how the system worked, could find nothing wrong with the parts and installation, and had no real answer to the cause of the problem. However, to us both the old and new joker valves did not seem quite right. They should have been totally puckered up and sealed in the normal state and not slightly open as these were, which would allow water to pass back from the drain hose into the pumping cylinder. We have asked for advice on the problem and in the meantime it is back to the bucket for us like in the early days of sailing.

The alarm went off at 4 AM and from the cockpit I saw the very bright lights of a boat I had been aware of for hours. He wasn't putting out AIS information so I turned on the radar and learned real fast how to mark a radar target for tracking. The radar gave information on bearing, distance, speed, closest point, and time of closest point, etc. This information did not have the precision of AIS because the target jumps around as the boat's radar dome moves with the mast. Nevertheless the information was useful and put me at ease. I also began tracking a target 6 miles ahead and soon saw that it was slowly outrunning us and presented no danger.

The "Dangerous Target" alarm kept sounding as the first target encroached on our 2 mile diameter safety zone and that woke Arnold up. He asked if I knew about the light astern of us and I said that I had seen it earlier but could not see it on radar. Eventually Arnold became concerned enough to suggest that we change course so I went out for a look and was amazed to see how close the boat was. However, he was showing red which meant that he was not heading directly at us but passing us on our starboard side. From the height of the light I figured that it must be a sail boat and soon I heard a sail flap. The boat passed us smartly and by dawn 30 minutes later he must have been 1.5 miles ahead of us. This inspired me to do better so we hoisted up the main with the first reef and rolled out the jib fully and soon we were doing over 6 knots on a beam reach. An hour later the wind had moderated and we settled down to a speed of 4.5 knots.

I figured that I had not seen the boat on radar because it was a sail boat. However, Arnold pointed out that because the radar is mounted in front of the mast there is a blind spot directly behind the boat in a sector that could be 20 degrees. This is something that had never crossed my mind but I would surely not forget.

The sail through the morning to noon was swift and steady, on a beam reach and following sea. I replaced a cotter pin on that I had noticed missing on the inner forestay turnbuckle and did some repairs on the blue tape that seals the two halves of the life raft.

At noon we were at 27N02, 115W22, 52 miles from land, 295 miles out of Ensenada and 390 miles from Cabo San Lucas.

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