[This message forwarded from their sailmail status report.]

Day 5 - Maine Passage

Hello from the North Atlantic, at 38*22'N, 69*39' W, as we sail
along on a broad reach, having turned the corner (on which,
more, below).

Today's "crisis of the day" developed just after the last report
was sent. We had our rig professionally (sic) tuned by Atlantic
Spar when we were in Annapolis. Aside from, I presume, making
sure it was straight in column, the best I can tell is that all
they did is severely loosen the stainless steel wires supporting
the mast. On a tack, the lee side wires can literally flop
around by hand. Ever since, the mast has moved tremendously in
its collar, forcing the foam rubber shock absorber, located
between an aluminum collar on the deck, and the mast, up. It's
what occasioned the failure (which wasn't really - we
accidentally cut it in the previous resolution of the collar
walking up the mast) of the last mast boot, requiring this new
one.

I'd been meaning to adjust the rigging to tighten it back up,
but something always got in the way of it, as the collar had
been put back down when we redid the mast boot. Out of sight,
out of mind... Anyway, with the collar above the ring on the
deck, our very light winds meant some rig flogging, and now the
mast was grinding away on the aluminum ring on the deck. Oops.
Time to get busy on that, right now!!

I'll spare you the shoulder-wrenching, arthritis-inducing
wrestling, details, but it suffices to say that the collar made
it back down, and the shrouds got tightened. So much so that it
changed the shape of the hull, pulling the sides together
slightly, trapping one of the sole pulls, needed to get at where
Lydia stows her spare beer, such that it was a real challenge to
get it up! I'll attend to that, along with redoing some of the
mast boot which came loose in all the pushing and shoving of the
collar under it, later today.

I went down for my usual short nap at 10, and Lydia woke me at
1:30, with the same complaint - unable to stay awake and
focused. She also told me of the new crisis of the day, which
is that our radar apparently doesn't like anything other than
fully packed batteries. Our batteries, as those who were with
us on the first leg of our journey last year at this time will
recall, had had some abuse as a product of a failed/failing
charger and some alternator problems, early in their lives. So,
being about 3 years old, which is normally pretty young, they
probably aren't in the best of shape, and I consider their
capacity suspect, as we can go through a normal day's maximum
usage overnight (the solar and wind normally more than keep up
during the day, but can't fully replace what's been used
overnight). However, as yet another confirmation of the general
state of the industry, when I paid for the full installation of
the new radar to go with our chartplotter given to us by another
of our saints as he upgraded, they didn't install new power
wiring or a new circuit breaker. Thus, it's being powered by
20-year old gear, the same as was present in the much less
powerful predecessor. This isn't a new problem, really, as it
was identified long ago, but it's reared its head again, now.
Unfortunately, there's no workaround that I've found, and I'll
have to bite the bullet and do the installation of new wire and
breaker myself, later.

That said, this has been the most wonderful cruise. Yesterday
we were briefly visited - 200 miles offshore of the nearest
point! - by two barn swallows who checked us out,
circumnavigating the boat a few times, and then headed out,
without landing, to wherever they were bound. Even though we're
in the barest of zephyrs, and as a result we're rocking and
rolling a lot in the nearly-calm seas, we're still making 4
knots toward our destination. I figure this answers the
question of yesterday, as, if we got out of the Gulf Stream,
we'd be going nowhere. At least with this, we'll be something
on the order of 80 or more miles closer to our destination by
this time tomorrow!

Fortunately, Chris Parker, our weather guru, wrote back to the
couple of short questions I posed over sailmail, and we were
able to stay in the Gulf Stream until our turning point at
38*00'N 68*40'W. Up until that time, we'd had the best of the
forecasted possibilities of the benefits to the Gulf Stream,
achieving lift the entire way, and, for the last several hours
we were in it, back up into the 9 knot range (from the several
hours we were drifting along at 4-5 knots). So, at 3:30 this
afternoon, we headed north, leaving the lovely prize of the
added speed of the Gulf Stream, our very good friend for nearly
120 hours.

Shortly before this was sent, I went out and twiddled the rig
again before we changed onto a port tack to go north, so that
the pressures would be equal on both sides. It will take more
work, not only occasioned by the changes I've made under way,
but from the realities of having the front and back of the rig
entirely slackened to deal with the travel lift at the yard.
I'd gotten spoiled in our earlier life, with lifts which were
much larger, and thus not requiring any alterations to the
standing rigging in the course of lifting and moving.

As I write, it looks as though yesterday's musings on routing
held true; we're pushing 7 knots and the forecast is favorable
to maintain that speed through the balance of our passage. With
last night's doldrums, and in particular because the currents in
this particular part of the ocean were much more northerly than
on a historic basis, having stayed in the current was definitely
the better thing to do, because there's also a counter-current
which, had we turned NE at the expected point of the Gulf
Stream's change in direction, would have been right on our nose!

So, once again, we're on a broad reach in 10-15 knots of wind,
comfortably making consistent way toward our next turning point,
the Great South Channel off Cape Cod. With any luck, we'll be
making that turn shortly after tomorrow's posting. As I write
this, we've covered 800 miles in slightly less than 5 days, for
a 160 mile average. No doubt our last few days will see that
drop precipitously, but I'd be pretty surprised to see it be
under 100 miles. Once again, at the risk of sounding like a
broken record, we're thrilled with Flying Pig, and very pleased
with the return on investment of our new sails.

We're now in the phase of the passage where we continually get
closer to land. For several days, we've not been closer than
250 miles to any land, but we're only about 200 miles from Long
Island's South shore, and Cape Cod. We're looking forward to
seeing land again :{))

For today, then, this is Flying Pig, with crew Skip, Lydia and
Portia.


L8R

Skip, Lydia, and Portia, the sea cat

Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at
www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at
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"You are never given a wish without also being given the power
to make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts."