Fighting contrary wind and ocean currents and a mysterious engine fail....after 15 days we arrived in the remote atoll of Chagos. Predictwind was valuable fo...

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we are two and a half degrees above the

equator and anytime I set the sails

another rain shower pops up to upset the

flow of air and so that means I have to

reset the sails or just roll them up and

get them out of the way it's becoming

frustrating we have a rain shower there

you have a rain shower there over there

rain shower there we're surrounded by

rain showers and we haven't gotten a

speck of rain on our boat yet so I've

kind of given up sailing for a while

it's only about ten knots of wind anyway

at least win we aren't affected by the

rain showers so we've got the motor

running

we've got just the stay sail up to give

us a little stability help to keep us

from rolling and of course when there is

wind it's right on the nose but this is

sailing into the tropics I can't imagine

what the old guys back in the 1800's did

with their sailing ships trying to deal

with this but we have lots of diesel so

hopefully what we're trying to do now is

get west as west as possible so right

now we're sailing south west because we

have terrible currents that's going to

be shoving us to the east and so we want

to get as far west as we can then head

south to the Maldives and then those

currents didn't do whatever they want

with us

headed back to the east but we'll have

our West thing already the wind has

picked up to 1314 nuts and we're doing

six point six

over the ground so what a surprise that

is I think it's time to put the bonnet

or self-steering vane into action 26

knots it makes it a little more

difficult for dropping the paddle into

the water and getting it latched I have

to get a good drop on it and then pull

forward a bit with good line and it's

snagged there's a latch down on the

bottom that this red line is attached to

and that locks it in place but if we hit

an obstruction it'll allow the paddle to

swing to an L position turn the air made

into the wind so it's standing straight

up and down like that we're gonna get

ready to put autopilot on the standby

turn this knob to lock it into one of

the holes and the monitor is steering

the boat and if the wind should shift

around to the right the boat will follow

that one shift around to the right and

same if the wind should shift off to the

port

an old line had worn on a pulley and

eventually broke I should have been more

vigilant and adjusted the line so the

pulley would wear on a new section of

line to extend its life I get these

control lines from monitor they're a

special low stretch and strong at last

thousands of miles the new line is stiff

enough to shove down the pulley chase

and by continually lifting and jamming

it down eventually it finds its way out

the bottom where it can then be threaded

through the hole on the paddle arm and

finished with a stopper knot a trucker's

hitch finishes the replacement

installation

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this is the portside jib lead block and

if you look closely you'll see a hole on

the forward end of it that's where the

fixed pin used to be the spring-loaded

pin I got rid of that long ago and when

we are set up with that 90 percent jib

it is permanently shackled to the

sliding pin that holds it in the most

forward position on that track now when

we switch to the 120 percent jib I need

to be able to move that block forward

and aft very easily from the cockpit

depending on how we have the 120 furled

so we set up a simple block and tackle

and have this arrangement with the red

line going all the way back to the

cockpit now no matter how much of the

120 we have deployed or how little we

can position the block very easily from

the cockpit and that red line goes back

to a brake in the cockpit to hold

everything secure there are times when

since there are no roller bearings on

this block it can be a little difficult

to maneuver so I just reach over the

side of the coaming and pull up on the

red line and sweat the line just like if

I'm pulling back on a bow and arrow and

that will help to bring the block

forward just the natural tension of the

sheet and the angle will hold the block

backwards on its own you can spend

hundreds of dollars on a new block with

all kinds of roller bearings or ball

bearings that will slide extremely easy

forward and aft but this is a good quick

cheap situation and it works well enough

for me I don't need anything more fancy

than this and it's far safer than going

out on the deck and trying to struggle

with the pin block

to reset it in a new position especially

in rough weather

so without a block-and-tackle set up on

the jib car so it can be adjusted from

the cockpit this is the only other way

that I know of to adjust a car that's

under a load the first you have to tie a

line to the jib sheet as close to the

clue as possible using a rolling hitch

and then bring that down to a cleat on

deck to give it some aft pull then you

have to go all the way back to the winch

ease off the jib sheet then go forward

and move the car back then go back to

the cockpit take up tension on the jib

sheet on the winch and then you can go

forward again and untie the rolling

hitch and that can be difficult because

there's a lot of pressure and sometimes

it takes screwdrivers something to start

flying up the line so you can untie the

rolling hitch and undo that temporary

securing line if anybody knows or

another system for moving a jib car

under load it please leave the

information in the comments below thank

lying off sometimes the pressures are so

great on this that I need a screwdriver

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John Roger Roger

all as well

Oh as well we've gone 18 miles since I

talked to you this morning 18 miles

since we talked to you this morning

towards

the storm that was shown on predict wind

before we left Trincomalee Srilanka

upset the whole weather pattern so

rather than having flat calms we had

winds if we had winds at all was

directly on the nose in at times they've

got to be maybe 20 knots of wind so

we're tacking north we're tacking south

we're tacking in just about every

direction that we can possibly tack

except in the direction that we want to

go to the southwest of course it

couldn't happen during the day it had to

happen at 1 o'clock in the morning

middle of the night and the engines just

started to cough and slow down as though

it had something on the prop so we

stopped the engine I went over the side

with an underwater light and there was

nothing on the prop the next thing was

then to start the engine again and go

down into the engine room so I went into

the engine room with the engine running

and I could not believe what I saw on

the rake or suction gauge it was higher

than I've ever seen it before initially

11 years before when we had some

contaminants in the tank it went up to

you know just maybe the 1130 position

but never over here at the 9:30 position

the suction gauge rotates

counterclockwise from the 12 o'clock

position where the dark square spot of

the needle is always in the 12 o'clock

position on the black mark meaning that

there's no restriction in the fuel

system at all so we had a severe

restriction somewhere in the fuel system

before the engine so I switched the

selector switch from the left filter to

the right filter and the suction stayed

the same this was really becoming a

mystery so we shut down the engine and I

opened the starboard side record filter

that's the one on our left as you're

looking at it

and I could not believe how blackened

contaminated it was the portside filter

was actually very clean but that's the

one we really don't use very often and

it turned out to make a long story short

both fuel pickups and both tanks were

restricted at the pickup so I had to

disconnect the fuel line from the tank

to the record filter and blow hard first

in the port tank which I was blowing so

hard I almost gave up on it but then

finally it did clear and then switched

the fuel selector switches over to the

starboard tank and did the same thing

blew like crazy and blew the restriction

back in and that cleared it and then

that godess going again along with

adding a new filter to the starboard

side I always add biocide I mean that's

a real necessity even though you might

be burning through a lot of fuel I think

my big mistake was we spent so much time

in Southeast Asia and very calm water in

marinas or Anchorage's for about a year

there I did not add the bio side and

that was all to my detriment so a lot of

the contaminants that were growing the

algae that was growing settle to the

bottom and then this rough passage shook

everything up and that quickly got

sucked into the Joule pickups there's at

least two other boats that we know of

had the exact same problem on this

passage and they had to go through the

same procedure to blow out the

restrictions to get their engines

running again so I cannot speak highly

enough about the importance of having a

such engage and dual raker filters

without that suction gage it would have

taken me a lot longer to solve this fuel

restriction mystery right away I knew

there is a problem in pretty much just

where it was

closer we got to the equator the more

difficult the sailing was because of the

very strong currents you can see the

yellow on this current chart and it's

all flowing very strongly East but at

least that was some help to us because

we knew just how long we had to stay in

those miserable currents that were

pushing away pushing us away from our

destination and then how far south we

had to go to get in some encounter

currents that would help push us towards

Chagos I don't know where else to get

this information other than through

predict wind I used to do a lot of boat

deliveries between New England and the

Caribbean and always had all kinds of

sources for currents between New England

and Bermuda to play the Gulf Stream

currents and all of those Eddie's but

out here in the big Indian Ocean I'm at

a big loss and no other Cruiser that

I've been able to contact has been able

to give me weird to get up to date

present current information for this

part of the Indian Ocean

so predict wind whatever we pay for it

on a monthly basis it has more than paid

for itself just on this one passage it's

more than just wind it's also these

currents which are equally important but

anyway we finally made it to Chagos so

we're having a great time in the islands

and we want to spend every day of our 30

days allotted here well I hope this

video was helpful for you if it was

please click down below on the thumbs up

in on the subscribe button and we'll see

you soon

thanks a lot for watching

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