Its supposed to be a sailboat, but good thing it has engines too! Tried and tried agin to get enough wind to keep the journey going with the power of the wind. But alas, it was not meant to be. Well it could have been, just would have taken much longer and exposed us to the front that is coming. Or forecast to come at least.

After a few good days of knocking off the miles under sail, having to resort to the engines is a disappointment, however it is a means to an end and a pretty good safety factor. So we have a pretty good range on Engine power alone. We carry 800 liters, thats 220 gallons of diesel on board. We also even have another 100 liters in jerry cans stored “Just In Case” . With the normal 800 liters, thats 400 per engine. Which translates to about 100 hours of run time per engine. So we can run them together or separately. Together we get to go faster, but separately we get to go further but slower. If completely necessary we could get about 800 miles out of the fuel on board. Now the wave and wind direction will have a HUGE say into exactly how far we can go on the fuel. The tanks will still be more than 1/2 full, actually are reading 75% full.

Prefer to sail, but we make the most of it, topped up the water tanks with all the extra electricity that the engines were producing as the batteries were full as well.

The day was gray, they blue, then gray, then drizzal – just a mixed bag. Everytime the wind picked up to over 7knots we’d try to use it.. but ended up just letting the engines do their thing.

Another comfortable night of rest with the drone of iron jenny (slang for engines) ..

Here is a photo of the ring and pin that were trouble some yesterday.. The split ring at the bottom holds the silver pin in from coming out, it can only go up. When I found the one trying to escape, it was 3//4 of the way up.. was bound by the force trying to pull the bungie off.

All good on board, quick pork tacos for dinner and should arrive on Day 7 either at Opua or Marsden. If neither of them will be in daylight, Marsden will get the nod. Its a bit farther so it’ll be the wee hours of the night when we arrive.

Cheers.