Delivery part 3 - East cape to Gisborne and engine dramas.

Thursday - East Cape to Gisborne
Day 7

Its 2am and we're holed up in Gisborne for the night. We ran out of water yesterday because the tap in the bathroom sink was on and the sink works on a foot pump - the water doesn't some out unless you pump it and I guess it didn't get turned off. So when we were on a big lean to the starboard side, the bladder our water supply lives in was higher than the sink and all the water ran into the sink and down the drain. So no water. Luckily we have about 60L in reserve under the cockpit, but it's a pain in the ass not having water out of the tap. Which is why we're in Gisborne at 2am, to refill the water and fuel.

I noticed a few days ago that our batteries don't charge when the motor is on. This was worrying, but our little solar panel fills them up all day, and they slowly die during the night. Then the sun comes up again! Unfortunately, we had to stop here at midnight and then when we tried to turn on the engine to leave again it wouldn't start. I'm just glad it didn't fail when we ran out of wind, were drifting towards rocks and needed to motor - the thought of not having a secondary means of propulsion makes me very uneasy.

We're assuming the problem is lack of power, but we started it for a few hours just before sunrise this morning - before the solar power kicked in and it worked fine. I just hope it's a simple fix and we can get going again ASAP - we need to be in Wellington by Sunday night. We've got 2 1/2 days left if we travel at an average of 4 knots, so we should be okay, but don't want to cut it too fine.

As much as I want to get going, it's really nice to be stopped. The waves out there are big, the sea is rough and I was feeling pretty rotten before we came in. Everything is drenched from the spray, including our bed - there must be a leak somewhere. To be fair, half the deck was under water for most of the day. We've been beating upwind since this morning, which means lots of tacking and the boat has been on a nasty lean. I've never minded it before when we're racing, but not bring able to stand or walk through the boat without crashing into something is less than ideal. The boat has been smacking up and down waves all day with a horrible crunching sound every time we land and I was scared something would break. Maybe all that shaking just pulled something loose somewhere.

The calm before the storm

Big waves

And none of us were dry that day...

Mike looking like a salty sailor

So it's nice to lie down properly for at least one night before we get going again. Let's just hope we can sort this out in the morning and it's not too much of a big deal.

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9:30am

It looks like we'll be able to deal with this quickly then get underway again. We've been lucky with repairs so far - I think Mike is just very persuasive. He got a guy down here first thing this morning and he thinks he can fix it. Both the alternator and starter motor are screwed - the alternator was broken before and the starter motor obviously just decided to stop working last night. We're all well rested and ready to get going again. The forcast looks good for today with a 15 knot southerly which will hopefully move around to a south easterly for a nice reach all the way home. Much better than the 25 - 30 knot headwinds we had yesterday. We were beating into them all day with our oversized no.1 genoa out (we think it's 160%) so that wasn't a very comfortable leg. The winds were supposed to die off after Gisborne, so we stuck with the big sail.

This morning I put on my togs and had a shower on the dock with a hose and soap. That was fabulous, although freezing cold. I hadn't had a shower or brushed my hair in at least 7 whole days, a new record of disgustingness. So at least I'm clean if not warm.

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2:00pm

We're still here. The engine does not look good. The electrical guy has called for backup from an engine guy, so it's starting to look pretty serious. If we don't fix this today Garth might have to take a bus back home to be at work on Monday. There's talk of water sitting on top of a piston and I don't know what that means. There's also a possibility that we have a cracked head which is pretty much maximum bad. It's looking like we'll have to do a whole engine refit, which is super expensive. I had a feeling we would have engine problems but I was still hoping it would be okay. We would have been in a lot of trouble last night if the engine hadn't started to bring us into Gisborne, because we needed water and fuel and it's a nasty little narrow channel. There aren't many other places to stop along this coast.

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4:30pm

The engine is fixed! there was water in it somewhere which is now gone. It took a while for it to kick over and that engine noise is the best thing I've ever heard. Our guy fixed the alternator as well, so our batteries are now charging properly. It was just a loose wire into the battery. If anybody ever gets stuck in Gisborne with a broken engine, the guys from Bensons are amazing.

We got a lot of things sorted while we were stopped today - we dried everything on board, which had gotten wetter and wetter over the days. We solved the leak problem in the v berth and dried everything - there's a compartment aft of the bulkhead that's open through to the v berth. It would get water in it and then when we were on a nice heel ramming through the waves it splashed up everywhere and drenched the bed. Mike also fixed a leak in the outgoing pipe of the toilet and David reorganized the cockpit locker again so nothing can disturb some random wires in there. So our list of things to do is growing but we're getting stuff done along the way which is really exciting. Now we're all dry and rested and ready to go sailing! I expect to spend the next day or two huddled in the cockpit feeling horrible, so I'm just hoping the seas aren't too rough. But they will be.