Yesterdays noon-to-noon run was 127 miles. We started the Marquesas part of this passage with some great wind. The first few days we were doing 180-190 mile days. Things held up pretty well for 2,000 miles. But now the trades have shut down. Yesterday afternoon and last night was a driftathon. Mostly doing about 2 kts. I put a reef in the main to reduce the slatting and slamming of the mainsail going back and forth. Advance notice on today's noon-to-noon run looks like it will be well under 100 miles. Slow! The last GRIB I looked at showed a little reprieve in a day or two -- from really light wind to light wind. This morning we are up to 3.5kts -- yee-haw!
Our advanced technical ground logistics and support group has informed me that duck tape (AKA 100 mile an hour tape) is appropriate for stock car and midget racer body repairs, but not so good for marine steering applications. The bolt that broke on the steering is the one that has worked its way loose before-- the large bolt that goes through the steering arm and the rudder post. I'm pretty sure that it got bent when it was partially out. It was really hard to re-install and using a big socket wrench put a lot of strain on the bent part. The bolt is fat enough that I'm certain it would outlast the boat by 100 years if it had not worked its way loose. After breakfast today I'll stick some epoxy on the ends of it to help convince it to stay in place till we get to Papeete.
About 400 miles to go.
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It's a BIG ocean and more often than not there is too little wind and too much swell. May the Divine Wind guide you.
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