CHANGES eggs all the way across the Atlantic. Guirec and Monique became good mates, so after landfall Guirec would not only take Monique surfing with him, but also out to candlelight dinners on the beach at La Plage in St. Barth. Last winter Guirec told us that his plan for the upcoming winter was to get his sloop trapped in the ice in Greenland, and be self-sufficient and out of communication with the outside world until spring. With Monique, of course. Well, the two did make it to Greenland, and they intentionally got trapped in the ice out of touch with the outside world. This according to reports from a fisherman from a nearby village who stopped by to check on Guirec and the hen from time to time. Mike and Deanna Ruel of the Manta 42 R Sea Kat, having just celebrated their 37th year together, had every reason to expect they'd have a glorious last leg of their circumnavigation, 7,648 miles from Cape Town to Miami. After all, once a couple of hundred miles from Cape Town, the passage up the South Atlantic is generally considered to be one of the most pleasant in the world of
One of Mike and Deanna's many tribulations prior to their 7,600-mile crossing of the Atlantic was having to remove the Volvo diesel.
cruising, with reliable moderate trades blowing from aft of the beam. Plus, the couple had done all kinds of work on the boat in South Africa, fixing everything from sails, to engine seals, to replacing
the broken gooseneck bolt, and more. But if it wasn't for bad luck, the couple wouldn't have had have any. It started when their autopilot crapped out 140 miles into the passage. They'd just about made it back to port when an engine temp alarm went off. It turned out the mechanics who replaced a lower engine seal on one diesel hadn't done it right and all the oil had leaked out. When the Volvo mechanics arrived, it was decided to remove the engine to make sure the repair was properly done. Then the bearings froze up on the dynamo in the Kubota diesel, starting a fire. The generator had just been gone over. When restarting the generator, Mike noticed a crack in the exhaust riser. Mike tried to repair it with JB Weld, but it didn't work. After having a welder try to repair the exhaust, they learned it was easier to just have him build a new one. Having finally gotten away for the last time, surely their luck would turn. It did for a bit, as they had some very nice sailing weather. Alas, then the almost always excellent sailing conditions went to heck, and required as many as "27
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