Day 22 : Ascension to Azores

Tuesday, April 12th 2022

We’ve been deliberately quiet about the status of our jury-rigged fix to our broken steering since it happened.

That’s because it’s been going well, and we didn’t want to jinx it.

After a few days of monitoring it and everything holding fine, though, we made the terminal error two days ago of putting our bed back together. The temptation was just too great – although there are plenty of other places to sleep on the boat, the aft cabin is the best by far. Its quieter, more comfortable, and is more efficient for when we‘re having showers, looking out clean clothes etc etc.

It’s also our “cave” where we retreat on our off-watches during the day to have some non-boat downtime and watch movies etc.

But we should have known better. I even wrote half a blog about our curse. And so, last night as I went off watch at 1am, and was getting undressed, I heard a suspicious noise emanating from the steering under the bed.

It was actually a different noise from any that had come before - more of a low grumbling sound or vibration. But not good, that was for sure.

Jen came down to help, and we once again took the bed apart. It was immediately obvious that our fix, the ”Franken-nut” as it’s been named (thanks, Matt), was working itself loose. That only took 2 minutes to tighten up, but a lot more time was spent discussing how to stop it working itself loose again.

And in the meantime, it didn’t entirely remove the noise I’d heard.

This sent us off on another tangent – perhaps we had something caught around our rudder - it was exactly the kind of noise it would make if there was, for example, a bit of rope or netting caught between the top of the rudder and the hull.

So after some discussion, we dug out the GoPro, a waterproof head torch and a boat hook, taped them all together, and sent them over the side to see what we could see. Of course, by this point, the wind had filled in, and we were sailing at a fair old speed. So we could see precisely nothing until we took all the sails down and stopped the water from rushing past the rudder.

Fortunately, or not, depending on how you look at these things, there was nothing to be seen. That means I didn’t have to go in the water to remove anything (it was now 3am, and the water is damn cold here plus it was a bit rough), but it also meant we still had no solution to the source of the noise.

We tightened the Franken-nut still further, and although the extra 1/32 of a turn I got on the nut didn’t seem like much, the noise disappeared.

Huh – there you go. Who knew such a little thing could be responsible for so much aggravation? Eh ladies? Eh? (Taps Mic) Is this thing on?

Anyway, that was enough for us to at least call it a night, and for me to officially start my 4 our off-watch period, some 2.5 hours late. Jen generously agreed to extend my time off by a couple of hours, so I could get some sleep. And she even put the bed back together while I was clearing away some of the tools etc we’d had out, so that I could get a decent sleep, even though we knew it would be coming apart again in the morning, and probably staying that way until the Azores.

It was now 800 miles and 6 days since the steering had broken. And we have almost exactly the same amount of time and distance until we reach the Azores.

The good news is that so long as we attend to it regularly and keep a much closer eye on it, it does seem like the Franken-nut will hold together until we get there - it’s certainly none the worse for wear so far.

But it would be nice to find a way to stop it from working itself loose. We agreed to regroup in the morning to see if we could find a way to increase the time between having to tighten it.

(To be continued tomorrow)

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Day 26 Statistics:

Time on passage so far: 26 days, 5 hours
Distance covered in last 29 hours: 179 nm
Average Speed in last 29 hours: 6.2 knots

Official Length of intended Route when we set out: 3,480 nm
Current Projected Distance to Go according to chart plotter: 669 nm
Distance Sailed so Far: 3,110 nm
Total Projected Distance of Route: (3,110 + 669): 3,779 nm
Change in total projected distance in last 24 hours: +44 miles (Altered route due to latest forecast)

Estimated Day of Arrival: Predict Wind is now saying 8am on Monday 18th April

Number of times we have now removed or tweaked Franken-Nut to inspect, modify or tighten it in the 6 days since we implemented it: 17