Sunday, June 8, 2008

Monday [Sunday, actually, ulli] morning, 8 June 2008

0600, 8 June 2008, 35N08 147W53 C053M S5.3 APP WND 050 9.2

We have gone 129 Nm in the last 24 hours, which is not bad considering a lot of light (or no) air.
The GPS computer still says 9 days to SFO

Yesterday morning I thought we were punching into the long awaited HIGH that precedes the sled ride down into SFO. Nope. Not yet. The wind came back, then faded, then came back .........

So we decided to run the motor for a couple days and just push our way across. Noisy, but what the heck. Maybe we could get there in 13-14 days and impress everyone. After all, The boat is loaded down with a ton of fuel. (Enough for 6-7 days of continuous motoring.) Up until now we have hardly used any fuel. Even when charging the batteries, we were often going too fast to engage the prop.

Well, "push through" was not to be. After about 3-4 hours a bad vibration set in that I'm pretty sure is a shot cutlass bearing. (Last replaced 2 years ago at Swenson's.) So, it's back to sailing and hope for the best on getting across the high. It's so close. Wonder if we can go up and over?

Besides, it is after all an ocean racer. We don't need no stinking engine.

4 comments:

Valerie said...

You really are "lost at sea" --- it is still only Sunday! Monday will come but not until tomorrow.
V

Anonymous said...

A boat clock, showing day of week with date and time could make a nice present ;-)

The weather, which they describe, is not what the grib files and weather charts say (sigh, who ever trusted the weather man?), but nevertheless, they seem to be going smack into the center of the high, with a stinkin' engine failing ...

Anyone has an idea what a tug over 1200 nm costs?
Ulli

Valerie said...

Perhaps this is the answer to the question, why oh why did they leave HI 6 weeks before the start of the race?
Lots of time to go cruising.

Anonymous said...

My god - it's a time machine. But of course! It all makes such perfect sense now. The so-called "retired nuclear scientist" - the long trips away "sailing." There's no doubt - Bill Myers is a time traveler. Now the question is... is he from the past or the future?