Well sorry for not blogging on the journey but as there wasn't a lot of sunshine batteries were only being charged by the homemade water driven charger, even had to top up with the engine a couple of times.
The half way celebration was a resounding success, instead of a beer I roasted a chicken with roast potatoes, and cauli/brocc with oceans of gravy. It was really good and I will have to recommend these roast-in bags that Sue put on board, they are the best.
We had very good wind and have made quite a fast passage, we were slowed down on Tuesday when the wind went to the north and speed dropped away, but on Wednesday it went into the NE. This wasn't good either as we couldn't now keep our course and meant we had to gybe, now theres a story.
I went forward and released the boom preventer and the running backstay ready for the gybe when the boat gybed on its own, this was a gentle one as not much wind about, the main sheet was right out so the boom leaned against the other backstay and sort of bounced back, I had flattened myself half way back on deck, and didnt notice the sheet rope had caught the pin of the mainsheet block and undid it!!! this gives the main sheet another 6 feet of travel and the boom did just that and bumped the mast stays, suprisingly it didnt stop there, there was a snap and the 1" solid bronze pin holding the boom in the goose neck fitting snapped clean in half, the boom now released started to swing dangarouse. Managed to secure everything no problem and through it all Fred was driving the boat merrily along on course, with the mainsail now stowed on the boom speed went down a lot and I was to tired to think of solutions and went to bed! When compos mentis again I came up with an idea of putting the sail back on the mast and taking the foot sliders off the boom leaving the main loose footed and sheeting the clew direct, meant another lot of hard work but when all done sail now flying we were doing a knot more then with the boom!. After another argument with a merch boat I found it as no problem at all to gyb tack or do any normal practice without the boom in fact it made it so easy I will not be using the boom at all on the downwind legs of this journey! All boat speeds logged on the map after 8pm on Wednesday are without the boom.
We have since managed to keep our average daily mileage and arrived in Porto Santo at exactly 0930 same time as we left the marina last Sunday. Total miles traveled 697.8 in 6 days, not bad going for a 73 year old boat. Position: 33,3.57N , 16,19.9W
LLew-Roy
