To start the second week at sea, I was woken up from a very sound sleep by a thumping sound. I went around the boat several times and could not find the source of the sound.
I checked the bilge. It did not have any more water than I would have expected. So, I didn’t have a leak. Being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean a 1000 miles from anywhere, that was good news!
The sound was irregular so it was hard to pin down. Three thumps and nothing for an hour. It was wearing on my nerves.
Still, I had to sail the boat. The mainsail did not have a good shape. I tried to make a few minor adjustments, but nothing worked. The weather had been relatively nice, overcast, but no rain. Still, I went to the mast to tighten the halyard. That’s when I saw it!
The source of the thumping… A bolt had broken on the gooseneck. The gooseneck is the moveable joint that holds the boom to the mast. The bolt and it’s spacers were laying on the deck.
Gooseneck Hardware
This means the boom was just hanging there being held by the mainsail. I could not sail another 800nm this way.
Broken Gooseneck
I needed to find a way to fix it. I looked through my bin of miscellaneous hardware. It was hard to say, but this was my lucky day! I had, exactly one bolt of the proper size, just a little longer.
An hour and a half later, the boom was back in-place and we were sailing again!
By noon that day, there was no wind again. I started motoring. This time I motored all day and into the night. Early the next morning, the engine just stopped… no clunks, no funny noises. It was just as if I had turned it off.
I checked the fuel filter. It was clogged. I changed the fuel filter, but was unable to get the engine started. I kept trying until I had nearly drained the batteries. I would try again tomorrow. Right now, I need the solar panels to charge the batteries before night-time.
No wind, no engine, bobbing like a cork… and then a downpour of rain. Thankfully, the rain beats down the waves and actually makes things more comfortable.
An hour later, there was a huge wind shift. We went from no wind to a stiff breeze. I quickly reset the sails for the new wind direction. Over 20kts of wind and we were flying! The rain came and went from a downpour to just a mist several times.
Those winds lasted until about midnight. Then they slowly subsided.
I was conserving power. So, there was no turning on the Starlink to get a fresh updated weather forecasts from the internet. Instead, My friend Dan was on top of the weather for me. He would give me the “Big Picture” and then what I should expect in the next 12-24 hours. He updated me several times a day.
I would have nice partly cloudy days, clear nights and then fog in the morning. Fog in the morning, meant no wind, no engine…. arrrgh!
I was blessed with a nice sunset every few days. Which brought me peace since I still could not start the engine.
Somewhere in the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean
Somewhere Else in the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean