May 30, 2010 Day 9
38 02 N 69 44W
Tough Day
Hi Everybody,
It’s been a long tough day for the crew of avalanche. The sun rose on blustery windy squally weather with wild seas in the Gulf Stream. The boat and crew got totally soaked both by breaking waves and by rain. In the early afternoon we finally began breaking free of the stream and of the heavy winds and waves. The winds lessened and the waves diminished, but we were in a foul current of 2 knots or more. We just were not getting very far very fast. Jake started the engine so we could make better speed, but the engine overheated: something had gotten caught in the engine intake line. Jake, Leo and I worked to blow the line clear while others sailed the boat. On attempting to restart the engine the starter failed. In the meantime the bilge pump came on and stayed on and on and on. So Leo and I began pulling up floorboards, checking the engine strainer we had just had open, checking all the systems that were running. Long story short the bilge strainer (which we carefully cleaned before leaving Antigua) was full of stuff so although the bilge pump was running, it wasn’t pumping. After cleaning the strainer the bilge pump is performing normally. As we were looking for sources of water in the bilge Jake noticed water coming from the air conditioning evaporator pans. It turns out that the pans have a drain line on only one side, not both. So when we heel to one side the water runs through a hose into the bilge, when heeled the other way the water simply spills over onto whatever is beneath it. That was an easy fix: we bailed the water from the pan, turned off the air conditioning, and plan to put in a second drain when we get home!
Back to the starter: we have checked all the terminals, removed the start motor and cleaned it. (Sounds simple, I know, but it involves pulling up most of the floorboards in the salon and removing pumps and blowers to get to the affected parts. We have run out of daylight without a repair and are now sailing just as we would have in any case. The entire crew was up from noon on, so they are all exhausted. At this point whoever isn’t on watch is sleeping and whoever is on watch wishes he was sleeping! We’ll get back to the starter in the morning.
Meanwhile we’re 215 miles from home, sailing happily (if somewhat cold, especially Ruleo) under a beautiful starry night. Our ETA is difficult to predict at this point.
All the best from the crew of avalanche, hoping the engine starter will do its job tomorrow!
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