5 Apr 2008

4 nautical miles

Arrived a little late - slept in as the previous night I had only 2 hours sleep.

Daniel had repaired the centre-board. It felt as smooth as before so the water wouldn't notice even if visually it could be seen. After re-fixing it in the case [fun game - we had followed the Wayfarer book top of drawing lines from the centerboard pin hole so that when you find a line you can follow the line to the hole and line it up.

Anyway, after fixing the centreboard back in place we put some fresh water in the hull to see where it leaked from to try to find the leak inside. The water was leaking quite fast from the starboard self-bailer. It appears that the rubber gland around the self-bailer was not making a good seal and so possibly water cames in there.

After finding that we went out for a sail round the bay - the intention had been to hove-to and have lunch on the water, but the clouds came in [ie no sun] and the waves were sometimes steep and so we got wet and cold. We don't have wetsuits like one would have in the UK, so cold comes quickly.

As I mentioned some of the waves were steep and I was steering into them and then steering out after the wave crest. Daniel said that I was not steering out early enough. Because of the time taken on the turn you have to start turning back out before you actually get to the crest - at least that's what he'd found helming a lifeboat in steep waves.