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Vagaris - 1000 Miles



Today we passed 1000 miles at sea. We've had a good day's sailing but still haven't found the warm downwind trade winds we're looking for.

The last two days has been pleasant and easy sailing with northerly winds on our beam. We've had a couple of good daily runs, the best currently being 168 miles. We're not pushing the boat and are sailing quite conservatively for crew and boat comfort.

The boat is working fine, but today I spent 4 hours upside-down in the bilges replacing some of the original watermaker water pipes after one of the wire reinforced 19mm pipes taking water from the feed pump to the watermaker sprang a leak leading to water in the bilges.

The trouble seemed to be that over time when a pipe has been under pressure (particularly where it bends) the reinforcing wire in the pipes has buried its way into the plastic hose reducing the thickness of the pipe wall which resulted in deformation, bulging under pressure and eventually a small crack, hole and leak.

The pinprick hole I had let enough water escape to cause a bilge pump alarm after 4 or five hours use.

A useful safety check I guess - make sure the hoses are strong enough. I thought the wire reinforced hoses were the best, but it seems the nylon mesh reinforced the are stronger and don't have the weakness of the wire under pressure wearing a hole in its hose wall.

So, 4 hours replacing all the hoses (as a precaution) and the watermaker is now fine and leak free. To celebrate (and clean up after a hot and sweaty job) I had a quick transom shower.

We also celebrated our 1000 mile mark with a small lemon drizzle cake Steve and Kath brought. Happy days.

Food today was chickpea and feta salad for lunch and pork chop in cider mustard sauce with potatoes and green beans. Well done Jax (and Kath) - very tasty and very well received by the crew.

Adrian
Sy Vagaris

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