After a few days for Eva the new crew to settle in, we had good weather to set off for Bermuda. Final preparations produced some unsettling incidents. I had changed oil and fuel filters and the engine had run well afterwards for a short test but when we went into the harbour from the anchorage to take on fuel the engine stalled a couple of lengths from the pontoon, restarted and died alongside. When I opened the engine compartment I found to my horror that all the engine oil had leaked out. After a lot of searching it transpired that the oil filter "O" ring hadn't seated and this allowed the oil under the pressure of 2000rpm to spray out.
Filling up with water at the same pontoon produced another heart stopper when I discovered the bilges were full-PS bilge will hold upwards of 50 gallons. The natural asumption was that a tank was leaking. To invesigate I had to remove the saloon table and starboard settee bunk to get at the tank under suspicion. I discovered in the end it was a simple error of leaving open a gate valve that had allowed the tank to syphon its contents through a breather pipe into the bilge.
The third event happened the next morning atemping to start the engine. After many attemps the starter motor refused to deliver. By chance a Canadian electrician was able to come straight out to PS at the anchorage. Repeated attempts to start had made the solonoid hot and it stuck-solution was to bypass it and all was fine except my wallet was $50 lighter. Some lessons were learned.
We had a cracking start to the passage with a beam wind of around 15 to 18 kts which enabled PS to cover 163 miles in the first 24 hrs, a record for her. The next day was similar and we clocked up 153 nm. The winds became lighter and I changed to the big 135% genoa. This is not undertaken lightly as it involves a lot of effort and even more should it become necessary to take it down in stronger winds.
We were still able to make around 115 miles a day but not until the final 2 days were we able to make the course to Bermuda. On the last but one day we had a storm with up to 34 kts fortunately well abaft the beam. I was caught with the full main up and for a while attempted to steer PS by hand but it was lock to lock stuff with big breaking waves looking like they would dearly like to jump into the cockpit. In the middle of the night I finally screwed up courage to reef the main. I whipped PS into wind and locked the wheel hard over. To my relief she just sat calmly at 60 degrees apparent wind whilst I put in a double reef. I flopped back in the cockpit and took 10 minutes blissful rest with PS laying calmly in the teeth of a near gale. Back on course she handled easily and the Monitor self steering took over.
The storm produced some amazing lightening bolts fortunately none of them too close. We arrived off Bermuda in the dark and hove too until dawn before entering St George's harbour completing a passage of a little over a 1000nm.
Filling up with water at the same pontoon produced another heart stopper when I discovered the bilges were full-PS bilge will hold upwards of 50 gallons. The natural asumption was that a tank was leaking. To invesigate I had to remove the saloon table and starboard settee bunk to get at the tank under suspicion. I discovered in the end it was a simple error of leaving open a gate valve that had allowed the tank to syphon its contents through a breather pipe into the bilge.
The third event happened the next morning atemping to start the engine. After many attemps the starter motor refused to deliver. By chance a Canadian electrician was able to come straight out to PS at the anchorage. Repeated attempts to start had made the solonoid hot and it stuck-solution was to bypass it and all was fine except my wallet was $50 lighter. Some lessons were learned.
We had a cracking start to the passage with a beam wind of around 15 to 18 kts which enabled PS to cover 163 miles in the first 24 hrs, a record for her. The next day was similar and we clocked up 153 nm. The winds became lighter and I changed to the big 135% genoa. This is not undertaken lightly as it involves a lot of effort and even more should it become necessary to take it down in stronger winds.
We were still able to make around 115 miles a day but not until the final 2 days were we able to make the course to Bermuda. On the last but one day we had a storm with up to 34 kts fortunately well abaft the beam. I was caught with the full main up and for a while attempted to steer PS by hand but it was lock to lock stuff with big breaking waves looking like they would dearly like to jump into the cockpit. In the middle of the night I finally screwed up courage to reef the main. I whipped PS into wind and locked the wheel hard over. To my relief she just sat calmly at 60 degrees apparent wind whilst I put in a double reef. I flopped back in the cockpit and took 10 minutes blissful rest with PS laying calmly in the teeth of a near gale. Back on course she handled easily and the Monitor self steering took over.
The storm produced some amazing lightening bolts fortunately none of them too close. We arrived off Bermuda in the dark and hove too until dawn before entering St George's harbour completing a passage of a little over a 1000nm.
