Reflections on Passage - Written Thursday 14/7/11

Just a couple of things wanted to get out there. Our length of journey was about 300nm longer than the direct line, and despite good speed, we took as many days as other boats we know who went to Savusavu at the top of Fiji. How can this be? Well it could be the fact we don’t have an auto pilot keeping us within 5-10 degrees of the set course and we had human ‘error’ of around 30 degrees before correcting our course. This happens too when we are surfing down the waves trying to get good speed, which happened, but by the time you drop off the back of the wave the wind angle is right down to 150 degrees instead of 120. Dan’s also wonders if the log is out by around 10% which would account for some of those extra miles. Dan is thinking about doing some speed tests using the hand held GPS over a set distance with no current to test this, but seeing as we have been so busy tanning/snorkelling/eating/resting since arriving here we haven’t yet done this.

Another thing that I wanted to mention as it has been affecting us since day two of passage is the prop shafts, especially on the starboard engine. When we were hauled out in May Dan fitted cutlass bearing to each shaft as the starboard side had been knocking and he thought this might fix it. Unfortunately while motoring on day two the starboard engine started making funny (awful) noises. The cutlass bearing wasn’t getting the water forced through it as it would on a water cooled engine and melted onto the prop shaft. Luckily the shaft seal hasn’t yet been damaged, but we have been avoiding using that engine and nursing along the port one just in case. So this means needing to fix it and as there isn’t as yet a way to haul out catamarans in Fiji we are planning on drying out in Denarau Marina on the sand tomorrow and probably the next day to remove the bearings. We have had to wait for the right tides to do this hence the delay. Dan is constantly muttering these days about not fixing things that aren’t broken!