Hi all,
Tried the old fishing game yesterday, got in a hell of a mess, hooks stuck in everything including me, after 2 hours or so had what looked like a decent rig to catch dorado,yahoo or mybe something at least, no go, all day, every time I was doing something the rod was in the way, eventually gave up.
Wind was ok and was still cracking on. towards evening it had calmed down and had a very pleasant sail, about 2100 spotted that yacht again, he was crossing my track from port to starb. I was much closer than last time so he isn't going any faster than me, he was over my horizon about 2300hrs.
After a power snooze woke up at 0300hrs made a coffe and was getting my wits together when bang! thud! the propellor started to make a terrible noise, thought I must have caught somthing on the prop. Started engine to see if I could shake it off by going astern. I was by then in a F5 doing 6.5knts, when I put it in gear nothing happened, my engine wasnt driving the prop, so down the engine room (Box) to see what could be wrong. I took so much care over fitting the new propelor coupling and shaft during last winter I couldnt imagine what could be wrong. When I was in, I found the propelor shaft had come out of the coupling!, (I don't believe it), cut a long story, it took till 0730hrs this morning to fix what went wrong, the grub screw holding the shaft had just worn away! stainless steel too, I had heaved too to stop the propelor turning but even then I was doing 3.4knts could not make the boat go any slower. This means I couldn't pull the shaft back into the coupling against the flow of water. It will just have to stay like that for now. I made sure it couldn't turn again and went back on course. Its the first time I've not had the noise from the propelor and it is so quiet now.
Today I have passed 2,000 Nm since leaving and have 983.3 to go, still going well wind today though is only F3 so not so fast. big Merchant boat came past and altered course to have a 'look see' he then turned away to starb and disapeared. Had 'spotted dolphins playing round the boat all morning, magic to watch.
More later
Roy
