The small victories

9°57.14’N 013°12.33’W

9th May 2020

The first sleep at sea. Granted it was barely two hours, but not an alien concept to me after these years of commanding a boat. Almost like an internal software switch, the body changes it's reactivity to sound or movement and it's necessity for rest when you are responsible for the lives of your fellow sailors. Feverish half-dreams of wondering whether we should stop in the lee of one of the islands north of Lanzarote to use phone service to contact a B&G agent to help with the autopilot malfunction kept me from sleeping. How would it affect our trip long-term? Is it worth losing 12 hours considering the forecast is favourable to carry on? In the end I decided to plough on and we all committed to hand-steering during our watches.

I woke at 0400hrs and sat at the chart table, sensing Janos' concerned presence at the wheel, I knew he was worried that I may be burning the candle at both ends, the man is as noble as he is selfless, I'm so glad he joined us on this trip; he was witness to the entire process of my joining Far Out. Walking up to a classic Hungarian smile that I've now gotten used to, I greeted him with a tired but cheery grunt.

I was supposed to take over at 0600hrs so I used the time to attempt reviving the generator once more. Three attempted cranks, five litres of engine room sweat and four hours later, after a sufficient amount of theorising and debating, we decided to simply change out the generator's water pump.

In the process, Dan noticed that the bleed screw was glued in and not the right size thread, meaning that the bracket inside the impellor chamber was spinning with the impellor, affecting it's efficiency. Sure enough, after reassembling and nodding to Vitto for the last time to crank up the engine, sweet cooling water was flowing through the generator, bringing fresh water and power back into the boat.

I emerged in my boxers form the engine room smelling quite ripe and took one of the more satisfying showers of recent times. The issue was the sum total of all the discoveries we made, this generator has probably had restricted water flow for some years now. One thing ticked off the list!

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As though Neptune was watching our movements and giving us some time to settle in to Far Out, a beam breeze teased our sails into a solid 8.5 knot average speed in the right direction by the early afternoon. Engine off, generator off, water tanks full, sails full and the Canary Islands on our backs. This wind blew Far Out into the next chapter, she shook off the cobwebs and carefully carried us over the Atlantic.