Day 25 - Good Christmas Day Sailing

We ran all night before a 20-22 kt wind heading due east and averaging probably 6 kts. The sea had become rough and the ride on Pachuca was jerky with the occasional wave hitting the side sweeping water over the cabin.

I had received messages from Mark in Port Townsend and Reg in Australia regarding the recent difficult engine start that I had reported in this blog. Reg's general advice was spot on and Mark was able to be very specific because he knows this model of Volvo (D440F, I think) so well. I'll study his message carefully before starting the next engine run.

Mark suggested that I start the engine with 1/3 throttle, which could solve the entire problem because I've always started the engine at idle. (Duh!) To my great relief Mark informed me that the high temperature alarm is independent of the temperature gauge.

My thanks to these friends and gentlemen for their support, which is difficult to overstate in the wilds of the South Atlantic.

I also received a message from Jeanne Socrates last night in which she gave me details on SAMMNet, which seems to provide good services for both the S Atlantic and S Indian Ocean. I have prepared a Sailmail message giving all of the required boat information and will try voice contact at 11.30 AM today.

Last night's Sailmail transmission rates were dreadfully slow for both sending and receiving, in the order of 250 bytes/sec. I consumed close to 30 minutes of air time and when it came time to receive the last message, the 5 Mb grib file, I stopped the connection. I then looked at the Sailmail radio propagation matrix and now South Africa at 1900 miles is a better bet than Chile at 2900 miles. The Chile station served me well on both sides of the continent.

At 8 AM the boat gybed so I suited up to investigate the problem. The Monitor ropes had jumped out of the drum after doing over 24 hours of hard duty, so I could not complain. The gybing itself was no problem because there is no stress on the sail and the boat goes quiet in the hove to position. As I was finishing up the work on the Monitor lines the boat very conveniently gybed itself again and soon we were on our way again. The day had started off in heavy overcast but weak sunlight was beginning to break through.

Using Jeanne's information I program the two SAMMNet frequencies into the radio and hear the warnings (floating containers further north off the coast of Nambia) and the weather situation. Reception was faint and scratchy but what I heard was very good. As close in on the continent expect improving reception on the lower frequency. I have prepared a Sailmail message to SAMMNet giving them all of the required information on this boat.

At noon our position was 36S07, 007W13, giving us a n-n distance of 139 miles, by far the longest 24 hour distance since Brazil. Better yet, the direction was to 085T, directly for Cape Town. I have little doubt that had I pushed the boat very hard with more headsail I could have made a distance of 160 miles, but this is a cruise and not a race. I am now measuring the distance to Cape Town rather than the actual Cape of Good hope, and at noon today we had 1270 miles to go. The barometer had dropped 1 point to 1015 hPa.

I spent most of the "leisure" hours of the day sewing the spray dodger to the sound of classic rock 'n roll (down to 1958). I managed to do a reasonable job on the main zipper, triple stitching at one end and double stitching the rest. However, there are problems. An 8" section of the starboard window has split just above the zipper, so in that section the canvas material will have to take the load. At either end of the dodger are 10" sections on the outside of the ropes that pass from the mast into the cockpit. The port end has a hopelessly frozen zipper in the open position and I thinking of sewing the bolt rope directly to the dodger and not worry about the zipper, since I can slide it in before anything else. The starboard side has a bolt rope only and should be OK. I should be able to finish the repair job tomorrow and then I will face two questions: (1) Will I be able to fit the dodger on adequately?, (2) How long will the repair last?

During the middle of the afternoon we got slammed by one of those boarding waves and one of the port fuel containers came loose. It was nothing drastic: It jumped out of the rope around the middle but the rope around the handle held it on the boat. I suited up and rescued it and returned to the cabin thinking that this fuel-on-deck idea may have passed its usefulness. To begin with, I've been carrying way much too much fuel for my needs. To date I have poured only 30 liters of the deck fuel into the main tanks, which are still near full. Thanks to the wind charger, solar panels, and my running the refrigerator only 2 hours a day, I haven't had to do many battery-charging engine runs. The chances are that I will depart Cape Town for Australia with maybe 60 or 80 liters of extra fuel carried in the cabin, and an UNCLUTTERED DECK.

It had been another good day of progress with the boat powering on toward CT with Jeff doing the steering and me free to do the sewing. I would check the Monitor lines before dark and hope that we had another uneventful but progressive night.

I put together another bean and lentil stew, and there were sufficient fresh carrots, potatoes, onions, and garlic to fill the pressure cooker past the recommended mark. This will feed me for another 5 days, which should see me about 2 weeks out of Cape Town. But Wait, There's More! It looks like I'll be able to get at least one more stew out of the remaining carrots, potatoes, onions, and garlic.

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