Sea Eagle - And we're off!!

And we're off!!

We slipped lines on the town quay in St George at 19:45 and headed out into the bay. I'm pleased to announce at 20:00 we crossed the start line 1st in Class A and were leading the pack heading into the town cut. Urmm, hold on a minute, what pack? Where's the fleet gone??? Oh that's right.......WE'RE A WEEK LATE!!!!

Let's rewind just over a week to the day before the restart to the Azores. Everything seemed to be going so well with the prep. The provisioning was complete and everything neatly stowed away. Ali had updated her inventory of the ships stores and we had the familiar index's on the inside of cupboards and bilges. Sea Eagle had been washed down and polished ready for the start line photo's. The crew were into their 24hr 'drying out' period before the big day. Grib files downloaded and waypoints entered, we had a plan. All until we had a major electrical disaster. To cut a long story short we had an electrical short on our DC system that caused a battery isolator to fail in turn reversing the polarity of our alternator on the engine meaning it was sucking our batteries dry instead of charging them. Luckily we found an excellent local electrician called Colvin who used to hold the title of Chief Engineer for the Bermuda Government for Marine and Ports. He quickly diagnosed the issues we were having, replaced some fried wiring and took our alternator away to be rebuilt. The crew were in good spirits again as according to plan we'd be fixed in a couple of days and on our way, although somewhat disappointed to be missing the official start of the next leg. It didn't help the disappointment that the next morning the crew instead of crossing the start line in Sea Eagle were sat in the tender waving everyone else off.

After the last yacht disappeared through the cut things quickly went from bad to worse. The alternator couldn't be repaired in Bermuda. The only option was to ship a new one from the UK, the ETA from Fedex being 5 days!! With nothing we could do we all agreed there are worst places to be stuck in the world than Bermuda (five days stormbound in Albania with Sea Eagle was an experience! - true story!). We received the new alternator as scheduled and Colvin arrived bang on time to fit and test everything before getting on our way again. It was all going so well. In order to give Colvin more room to install the alternator he removed the back panel of sound insulation surrounding our generator. A horrified gasp followed from Colvin. He has just notice a three inch crack in our exhaust elbow manifold on the back of the generator with accompanying salt and rust build up around the area. After closer inspection we realised we have a new major issue that needed immediate attention. The only Northern Lights (the manufacturer) dealer on Bermuda didn't have one in stock and the only way of getting a quick replacement would be from the US, a three day ETA. The crew were low, heads downs wondering if it was a sign we shouldn't be leaving on this trip after all. After confirming with every Northern Lights dealer in the Eastern US that three days would be the minimum, we decided to look at alternative plans. Luckily Mackie one of Sea Eagle's crew had friends on the island and had been out to dinner with a group the previous Saturday evening. A friend of a friend happened to have an Oyster 54 permanently moored in Bermuda. After quick ruling out a match in generators and borrowing the part with a view to replacing it the owner Nick pointed us in the direction of a small company called Ornemental Iron Works based in Devonshire, Bermuda who could possibility carry out a repair. We shot down to them with the part and later that afternoon we had a freshly welded exhaust manifold! Amazing job!

We fitted and tested the part straight away, grabbed some last minute provisions, fuelled up and clear customs and headed out through the cut just as the sun was setting with a course set for the Azores.

So here we are back at sea. The crew are settling in well to life on the ocean once more. We had a bit of a rolly night but the wind has picked up and we're currently making a comfortable 7.5-8 knots up the rhumb line to Horta.