Mild Bequia Blast

After a quick overnight stop-over in Bequia, it's up to St. Vincent. From our last brush with the Bequia Blast we were quite conservative with our sails, double-reefed main and a staysail. This was the right move, we sailed directly into a squall as we left Bequia.

But then things calmed down into a leisurely sail, and we unfurled the full genoa. We easily made it up into the Young Island anchorage on one tack, and tied up on the same ball we'd used previously.

After a dash into town for some provisions and roti for lunch, we got back into looking at the water-maker issues.

We had started it before setting sail, but it got to an even lower pressure than the day before, so I emailed Water Maker Services in Antigua for help. They didn't think anything was seriously damaged, just an air-locked pump or something like that. When we'd arrived at Young Island, it had stopped running entirely, it must have got air-locked while heeling under sail.

We did some digging and found that the raw water filter, before the feed pumps, was clogged again. I'd cleared this out the day before. This pointed to a problem in the sea chest's filter, so we opened that and found that it was letting grass flow around it. The filter was upside down and the ring that should be able to slide up to seal against the rubber on the lid had let the filter slide down inside it. Fixing that and cleaning the filters thoroughly got the water-maker working again at maximum capacity, producing better water than we'd seen all season. Success.

On a high from fixing things, Connor started tackling our wind generator. The "Silent Wind 400" has been shaking the whole boat when it runs. You get used to it after a while, but visiting friends struggle to sleep through it for the first day or two.

We'd ordered a bearing replacement kit for it, but hadn't got around to installing them. This turned out to be fairly easy, it's just a 3-phase alternator with a pair of bearings holding the shaft. A chunk of rust points to a failed bearing or two. Getting the old bearings out took some encouragement with mallets and a large bolt, but they came out and the replacements went in smoothly. Now we just hear the whirr of the blades cutting through the wind, you'd hardly recognise it.

Navionics Track