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Starblazer - 14/01/2014 – A Productive Day



Wednesday dawned damp with squally winds, the light rain brought winds of up
to 22knots, rising quickly from a fairly steady 12 knots. The increased
wind gave an immediate lift to our speed, from about 5 knots to 7.5 knots
but it never lasted more than about 10 minutes. If we can average more than
7.2 knots from now on we could arrive in St Helena just before dark on
Saturday, but it is unlikely. The wind dropped below 10 knots for a while
in the morning, Ayama motored past us so we just had to catch them and
overtake them for the third time once the wind filled a little. The GRIB
files suggest the wind will decrease so, realistically, we expect to arrive
on Sunday.

During the afternoon the weather improved to develop into the sunniest,
warmest day we have had on this passage! We continued to average about 5.5
and the seas were a lot flatter than they had been earlier. John decided to
try to put the gearbox back together which entailed lying over the engine
for nearly an hour. He reappeared drenched with sweat, very grubby but
semi-triumphant! I say ‘semi’ because it is all back together however he
then found a rubber seal on the floor below the gearbox. The gearbox doesn’t
appear to be leaking but we haven’t tried engaging gear yet, we will need to
motor into Jamestown Bay to pick up a mooring so will try the engine
beforehand then rely on the sails until the last minute. If necessary John
will have another attempt once we are stationary. At one point the string
restraining the propshaft snapped, the speed of the boat caused the shaft to
rotate making John’s job of reconnecting the flange on the prop shaft to the
flange on the drive shaft impossible. The shout went up for me to slow the
boat down. I let the genoas blow forward then rolled away the sails,
mission accomplished as the boat speed dropped to about 2 knots under bare
poles!

On the culinary front there has been some success. The seeded wholemeal
bread was possibly the best I have made by hand. We do have a bread machine
but that relies on the generator running for 4 or more hours. The little
Honda manages about 3.5 to 4 hours on a tank (2 litres) of petrol. The
second problem is that the battery charger takes up to 700 watts and it is
only a 1 KW unit. When I retrieved the ‘greener’ bananas from the aft cabin
I discovered them to be in a worse condition than the ‘riper’ ones in a
fruit bowl in the forward cabin. I had put the greener ones in brown paper
bags, obviously not a good move so I have learnt something. While the bread
was rising I made up some banana bread then cooked them at the same time. A
bit like John’s gearbox repair, I have yet to discover whether my yogurt
making was successful or whether I made cheese.

Dinner was pan-fried, butterflied chicken breast with a veggie Jambalaya. I
finally used up the last of the brown rice from home which was lurking in a
poly bag in the locker! It was very tasty.

Finally we would like to wish our nephew Paul a very Happy Birthday, sorry
but we can’t post on your timeline on Facebook from 000o 06’ WEST! We have
passed the Greenwich Meridian.

Joyce


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