Sail away - Sail Away Day 9

Still driving south down interstate I-65 under double reef main and staysail making 6-6.5kts.  I don’t know that had we been undamaged that we would be doing anything different than we are doing.  The fleet report shows a lot of boats arriving today.  That’s impressive, that means they averaged above 7 kts for the entire trip.  The fact that we will be getting in tomorrow night, making it in just over ten days is outstanding for Sail Away.  I wish I could have read the blogs of the other boats during the voyage.  But It will be fun once we can get online to go back and read everyone else blogs.  As my  sister’s husband said, you’ll have much fonder memories when you’re looking back in the rear view mirror.  I. read more...

Sail away - Sail Away Day 8

The weather report this morning doesn’t look quite as bad as it did yesterday.  I think we may just luck out on this one.  Still proceeding generally South down I-65 under double reefed main and staysail making 6-7kts.  Haven’t needed the main since we started having filter issues fortunately.  Noticed that Marinade and Island Tales both finally bit the bullet and made and easterly tack.  Allowing us to close the distance on Island Tales a little and get ahead of Marinade.  We went through some squalls where the rain came down so hard that we leaked in places I never saw leak before.  We think we will cross the line Friday night before midnight.  Probably anchor up somewhere until morning, maybe take some showers so Mia doesn’t have to hand us. read more...

Sail away - Sail Away Day 7

Regardless of my attempts to avoid fuel  filter issues by running only the generator or the main engine they have started.  With all this motion from these seas, my fuel is sufficiently mixed I think.  The weather forecast was a little disturbing this morning, rather than the nice trades we were hoping for we are running into gale force winds and 10-12 ft seas.  Looks like we will have about a day to get ready for it.  I put up the mizzen and then double reefed it, and then dropped it again.  My plan in gale force winds is double reefed mizzen and staysail.  We ran with a double reefed main only the first night after crossing the Gulf Stream in what turned out to be gale force and it was pushing it.  With our broken bow sprit, we won’t be. read more...

Sail away - Sail Away Day 6

Motor sailing  just east of do south in ENE fluky winds.   Made a couple adjustments on the jury rigged bob stay.  The aft battery bank got pulled down to much so that attempting to charge them only tripped the charger breaker.  So I swapped those out with some fresh spares.  Because in the past when I ran the generator and the main engine at the same time the filter boss alarm would go off, and I’d have to change the racor filter.  My experience is once that starts, it constantly after that.  To avoid that we shut the main down every few hours to run the generator and get the freezer back down.  We usually let the freezer get up to about 10 degrees then pull it back down to minus 10.  Crew is a little tired, captain is too! . read more...

Sail away - Sail Away Day 5

I forgot to mention Chucks birthday yesterday! We had had birthday cupcakes!  So we continued through the night In generally an easterly direction under main, staysail and genoa.  At 6 am my sister was sleeping in the bow V-birth when she was awoken by a horrible noise.  She said it sounded like we were dropping the anchor or something.  She came running, something is going on up on the bow.  Turning on the spreader light reveal the bow sprit going up and down.  I wasn’t sure that the pressure from the roller furled itself wasn’t going to finish the job, but we had to try.  Fortunately the genoa came in and rolled up.  We were still moving through the water at a good clip so next we rolled up the staysail and lowered the main.  Now we. read more...