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Starblazer - 11/03/2014 – Celebration dinner



Yes, we had a reason to celebrate yesterday, the 1000 mile mark from the
start. Dinner was fillet steak with new potatoes, green beans and leeks
followed by a tin of fruit salad with the last of the Greek yoghurt,
accompanied by a glass of red wine.

John had a frustrating afternoon, trying to get the generator to run. He
eventually managed to start it but it wouldn’t develop enough revs to pull
the cooling water through: diagnosis fuel starvation. He found the fuel
pump down by the tank had a dodgy connection, cleaned it up and tried again,
and again, and again…. He now thinks there is a problem with the fuel
solenoid, the way to test it is to remove it when the engine is running and
see if it makes a difference. Helpful information but rather useless if the
wretched thing won’t start though the other pump quietly ticks away doing
its job now. I think we have decided to spend some fairly serious money on
a new engine to go in the generator and a 12 volt motor for the watermaker
high pressure pump. It is a bit ‘belt and braces’ but better than not being
able to make water. Our next task is to source the parts to get delivered
to Tahiti, meanwhile keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t irretrievably
damage the membrane in the watermaker through lack of use.

Q has been doing a good job but, overnight, needed a lot of help when the
wind suddenly peaked at 18 to 20 knots, then fell back to 13! John got up
after only an hour’s sleep to try to solve the problem of the boat’s
balance. We had artificially balanced the boat by locking the wheel off
centre, needing to yank it one way or the other when Q lost the plot. We
let out the mainsail a long way, losing quite a lot of speed but the sails
are better balanced and Q can now cope. Another answer would have been to
reef the main but we decided against it in the dark as it would have meant
me going to the mast. We are now moving far more slowly but at least it is
in the right direction, with less wind. Now we are waiting for the
windshift the boats ahead have had.

One disappointment on this leg has been the SSB radio net. The morning
rollcall does work, just about, but the evening one is hopeless as there is
so much static. One problem is that 5 of the 6 net controllers are right up
at the front of the fleet, as expected by their handicaps, between 300 and
450 miles ahead of us after a week and we are not quite at the back! The
6th one was about 150 miles away but has a weak transmission. Yesterday a
boat in the middle of the fleet took over and it was more successful. We
have our own problems with transmission, we can hear almost everyone but
hardly anyone can hear us. The wire connecting the insulated section of
backstay to the Aerial Tuning Unit (ATU) looks suspiciously loose and John
thinks the wire might have parted and the sleeving stretched. He has some
heavy wire which would probably do the job but it means excavating the aft
berth to access the ATU, emptying the lazarette locker to feed the wire
through and standing precariously on the aft cabin roof to reach the
backstay to connect the new wire. Not surprisingly, John doesn’t fancy
undertaking these tasks in the rolly conditions we have!

Enough of the problems, if we didn’t have problems to solve what would we do
all day, out here over 1,000 miles from the nearest land?

Joyce



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