The wind dies further over night. I get up for my first hourly check at 0200 and we're down to about 3.5 knots.
At 0600 my alarm goes off and I wake to a banging noise from the cockpit. It's the main sheet car bashing from side to side on its track. But why? The mainsheet is loose. But why? I look up at the mainsail - it's a funny shape. Has the halyard come off? No.
I look at the boom, it's much lower than it should be - hence the slack mainsheet - but why? The clue of the sail (the lower back corner) is no longer near the end of the boom - it's a couple of feet further forward and higher up. The clue line (the bit of string that pulls the clue out to the end of the boom) must have worked loose. I go up to the mast base.
Funny it's still secure in the winch but there's clearly slack in the line. I winch the slack in and go back to the cockpit. The boom is now at the right angle but the clue is still not in the right place near the end of the boom.
Finally the penny drops. Either the block or the shackle holding the block (pulley) that the clue line runs through has broken and the block or its remains has slid forward until it's jammed on something else. I can't quite make out which due the sail cover being in the way and it's pissing with rain so I leave it for now and will have to investigate later when its dry
I then record our engine hours and compare that with those recorded when we topped up with 40 litres of fuel at Aapilattoq. The result is 68 hours - almost 3 days which I had previously worked out was the maximum a tank would last for (there is no working gauge). I was rather surprised but left it at that except to conclude we would need to top up the tank with the 60 litres (about 30 hours) of fuel we had in the jerry cans before running the engine again.
When George wakes at about 0800 I update him on the fuel situation. He too is surprised but sensibly digs back through our records and discovers we must have made a recording error. It turns out I had misread a 9 on the counter for a 4. We had only run the engine for 24 hours since filling the tank not 68. We have plenty of fuel for the 12 or so hours of motoring we anticipate doing today before the wind returns this evening.
So I turn the engine on and we motor directly for the western approaches at 2000 revs making more than 5
knots - we must have some favourable current.
I then tidy up the sails and lines for motoring mode while George starts breakfast - pancakes with bacon and also with tinned fruit and yogurt - yummy, I'm really looking forward to that.
Once I finish furling the genoa and setting the mainsail amidships to help reduce the rolling I investigate the clue line issue. It turns out that the shackle holding the block onto the boom either undid itself or broke. Before I have time to fix it George announces breakfast in 5 minutes, so I defer the job until after breakfast.
What a feast. George found packets of pancake mix in Walmart in St John's and bought a couple. Today's breakfast - our third pancake breakfast finished the first packet and gave us 3.5 pancakes each.
Have you ever listened to the Radio 4 programme - "Sliced Bread" during which the presenter evaluates apparent wonder products which have been promoted as "the best thing since sliced bread"?
Well, I think I'm going to nominate Walmart's Pancake mix for the accolade. By the simple act of adding water to the powder and mixing it up and then frying the mixture as one would a regular home made pancake, one gets delicious thick pancakes USA style. For hungry boaters wanting a quick filling breakfast they just can't be beaten, especially when served with a choice of fried bacon or tinned peaches and yogurt.
I am in gastro heaven. Two bacon and maple syrup pancakes disappear down my throat in quick succession followed by a modest pause, before one and a half tinned peaches and yogurt AND maple syrup pancakes follow.
It's definitely the best thing since sliced bread, indeed is far superior to it.
I've always regarded this classic American breakfast (OK perhaps they don't use tinned peaches) as a severe over indulgence and have only previously succumbed to it only a very few times and most of those on visits to the USA. I now fear a further addiction may be on the horizon and I may also have developed a new found sympathy for the plight of our American cousins!
We motor onwards for the rest of the day with a very variable wind doing not very much. With the engine running our batteries are at 100% by 1200 and so I run the water maker and the water heater.
The sea continues to flatten significantly.
AND THEN ... something very strange takes place. I make us an afternoon tea of toast and peanut butter/jam and a cup of tea/coffee. OK that's not strange but what occurs as part of the ritual is. I put two cups down on the galley work top, a tea bag in one and instant coffee in the other and pour in the water and subsequently the milk, .....
..." when all of a sudden....
...nothing happens"...
[if you recognise the quote you're probably as old as me or older]
Both cups stay exactly where I put them, neither shows the slightest tendency to relocate itself to some other part of the cabin ; the tea stays in its cup as does the coffee, not a drop spills out.
I leave them there for a few minutes while I make the toast but keep them under observation from the corner of my eye, because I know full well that this is just a test and that as soon as my back is turned they'll be up to their old tricks of slipping and sliding and spilling even if they don't have the energy for jumping. But no. They are still in exactly the same place by the time I have finished making the toast a few minutes later. Believe me, that is a VERY strange occurrence!
AND THEN.... something just as unusual - I have my first proper wash and don my first pair of clean undies since leaving Greenland (I have to boil a kettle because the 12v water heater takes ages to heat up). Thankfully I don't discover any nasty consequences from neglecting my personal hygiene for so long!
AND THEN... George decides it's calm enough to practice with the Sextant. He and I both attended an astro navigation course last winter run by our very good friend Bernie, who like George a venerable Jester, indeed Bernie is at present 'at the helm' of the Jester Challenge. [The Jester Challenge is an organisation for eccentric sailors in small boats who get together once a year to sail single handed from Plymouth to (depending on where the year falls in the cycle), Baltimore (Ireland), The Azores, or Rhode Island USA.]
Even more significantly with regards to the Sextant, Bernie is an ex merchant mariner who trained as a deck officer in the days when the merchant ships of the world navigated their way across oceans with the sextant as their primary navigational instrument. So Bernie knows what he's talking about.
Bernie is actually the second ex Merchant Mariner to teach me celestial navigation. After I bought my sextant I did an RYA course run by a charming ex Captain. I even passed the exam at the end of it. The sextant went back in the box after a couple of classroom sessions and stayed there. I promptly forgot everything I had learned!
We have both been harbouring feelings of extreme guilt that so far neither of us has attempted to get the sextant out of its box, let alone use it, or, god forbid, undertake the (for innumerate novices like me) the complex calculations required to work out one's position, but now we do - attempt to get it out of the box that is!!
We missed golden opportunities during our first days out of St John's when we had gorgeous warm sunny weather. I did think about it but was just too dam idle to do anything about it and now here we are after 10 days with barely a glimpse of the sun, and a constantly heaving boat, driven by guilt to practice on clouds!
I've got two sextants on board, a posh brass one in a posh wooden box that I bought at the London Boat Show about 20 years ago and which is in perfect condition due to ...... complete lack of use and a good quality plastic one that came with the boat. I get the plastic one out.
There was no actual sun on offer and anyway we weren't prepared to take a proper sight but the afternoon was reasonably bright and for the first time it wasn't an unpleasant experience to be outside, nor was the boat rocking and rolling all over the place, so we could at least practice the technique of measuring the angle of an object to the horizon. Today it would be a cloud which of course is no use at all for a proper sight but the technique required is the same. The sextant's clever array of mirrors and its moveable arm, enables one with practice to bring the object; the sun or another star, or the moon, down to the horizon and then read off the angle. The navigator notes the time to the second and then through the use of tables of angles and a series of calculations can work out a position line - actually a great circle (one that has the centre of the earth at its centre) that goes round the earth. He/She then knows he/she is somewhere on that great circle!
What use is that you may ask? Well on its own not much admittedly. But by working through a number of steps one can improve on that. Firstly, the classic noon sight is used to establish ones latitude. Now that of course is not a great circle but it is nevertheless a really useful thing to know because if you know that and then you get or have already got, a position line hey presto, you know where you are, where the two lines meet. Simple eh! Well not really but never mind.
Anyway I can report that our two intrepid navigators both managed to bring a cloud down to the horizon. Next we need the sun and to remember how to work out when local noon is!
Watch this space. From now on each post will include a progress report!
George cooks another Chilli served with Naan Breads (I kept referring to them as Pittas before) - delicious once again.
We turn the engine off at about 2100 and 12 hours of motoring and continue sailing at about 3.5 knots almost in the right direction.
Our midnight to midnight run is 104 nautical miles. Our distance to Lands End is 416 which means we are 101 miles closer than we were last midnight. Just as well we motored for 12 hours!