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February 8, 2007
Continuing water problems
LOCATION: Arabian Sea Crossing
Day: 9
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:18°11241
Latitude: E: 067°32201
Heading: 260°M
Wind: north, force 1
Miles from Mumbai: 320
Miles to Djibouti: 1,480
Our water problems continue with the third and last watermaker proving to be quite ineffective at creating a stready supply of water. It's a brand new unit, so there is no excuse. The rate of flow at present is about two drops per second; enough to keep the two of us alive if it came down to it, but not enough to keep us both fuller operational in keeping the boat moving forward.
We've reinforced the first backup watermaker (see photo below) with additional metal strips (cut from one of the dinner plates). This has extended its life for the last 36 hours, but more stress cracks are starting to appear and I doubt it will last much longer. Again, shoddy materials and shoddy workmanship putting these things together at the factory. How can three units, two of them brand new, fail within the first week? Incredible.
So we still have 20 gallons of emergency water in bags which gives us around 10-15 days of grace before we're completely out. During that time we'll be looking out for ships to resupply from, although in the past few days we've seen very few. I'll also be stripping down the electric watermaker (that failed first) and changing all the seals. It may be that this will get the thing going again (right now it's not building pressure), and which case all our problems are solved.
The Yemen coast is still around 20 days away at our current progress - quite slow on account of the wind and waves coming predominantly from the Northwest (on our starboard bow quarter). So if we can baby watermaker #2 along for a few more days and use the emergency supply sparingly, and ideally get resupplied by a passing ship, we'll be in great shape. At this point we have lots of options.
Bottom line for family reading this, we'll be fine. Quite a lot can happen within two weeks. Please don't panic! This stuff happens all the time (please read log from Hawaii and Tarawa voyages).
For anyone reading this in Mumbai who might have connection with shipping - if you know of any ships heading out from Mumbai en route to the Gulf of Aden who might be able to bring us out 200 litres of water please contact my father
Many thanks all. Hopefully we'll have better things to report in next update.
jason
Posted on February 8, 2007 2:44 PM