Yesterday out Etmal was 75 nm. All under sail. The lowest so far, caused by the lack of a Genua.
We have both sails up at daylight again only interrupted by a few practice maneuvers as a response to a rain storm touching us from aft.
Otherwise it was a relaxed cruise today. Weather was good and wind favorable.
In the evening the boys caught another fish. This time a blue marlin. It took around an hour to bring it in, just in time before adjusting the sails for the night. There will be lots of fish in the next weeks.
Did a bit of housekeeping today, laundry, cleaning up the tools and spare parts we used yesterday when fixing the gear cable and other stuff.
Planing ahead
We will have five crew members join in Samoa. At the moment personal belongings are everywhere on the boat. So some more cleaning up and discipline will be needed to keep the boat manageable with double the crew size.
The refueling in Samoa is going to be a bit tricky. Karen gathered intelligence and started organizing our arrival. There is no fuel station in the Marina where we could dock. The fuel will be brought to the Marina by truck. Then we have to see how to get it on the boat. We‘ll need to tell them in advance how much we need and when. It also needs to be coordinated with the Büro of Internal Revenue for the tax exemption.
We tried to do an estimation of how much we need. The electronic fuel gauges show tank levels in percent. They are not calibrated yet, e.g. for correction of the hull curvature. It also appears that the gauge for the port tank is completely inaccurate. Since the last refueling in Raiaetra to 100 %., the port engine has ran for 155 hours and has consumed only 25% of the port tank while the starboard engine ran for 20 hours consuming 12%, half of the amount for 7 times engine hours. Something is wrong with the displayed values. If we use the fuel
consumption values of the boat specs the port tank should be empty already.
The worst would be running out of fuel during a port maneuver and then having to shift fuel from one tank to another and to bleed the engine before being able to restart it.
We’ll open the tank(s) tomorrow and check actual levels, and maybe transfer some fuel.
Bobbel