The Trip so Far

Well, we’ve been under way for more than twenty four hours and so far all is well. We ran the generator successfully to recharge the batteries, which is huge, and we’re moving along under sail power with only minimal motoring done so far.

On leaving Tahiti we had decent but strange wind ? from the North ? which we knew would not last. We rode it as long as we could, then it died preparatory to shifting back to the South/Southeast as is more typical of the trade winds that are around here.

The weather so far has been not entirely pleasant. Not awful, it can be a LOT worse out here. But overcast, cool and rainy. Though the unusual wave patterns are what affect us the most. One usually associates sailing in the South Pacific with long rolling swells to the waves. They are often far enough apart so you don’t really notice them as the lift you up and put them down. But since leaving Tahiti the waves have been in very short, confused and sharp patterns.

What this means is the boat (and the occupants) get tossed around a lot. The boat slams into waves and gets slowed down, it rolls around and sometimes backwinds and slams the sails, and there is occasionally some violent and strange motions ? corkscrewing rolls or pitching about. We had to adjust the sails somewhat to compensate for it, but we’re doing OK.

False Start from Tahiti last Friday

Our original plan was to leave Thursday and we cleared out and did our paperwork, only to find out on our way out that the fuel dock closed earlier than expected, and we were stuck until first thing Friday AM to refuel.

We left early Friday and sailed North around Moorea in hope to see whales one last time. In the morning before leaving we ran the generator since the batteries were run down over night, and had to motor when we left Tahiti for lack of wind.

As we reached Moorea the wind picked up ? quite a lot ? so we started sailing. After an hour of this with us flying along in almost thirty knots of wind on our quarter I decided to resume running the generator since we still were not well charged up.

Once started then generator began running very roughly the moment I put any charging load on it. It ran so roughly that it stalled out and died. Several more attempts to start it later we realized we had a problem. It was also getting rougher and was not a really optimal time to climb into the engine room and start taking things apart. So we had a call to make.

Our options included to stop illegally in Moorea and try and solve the problem, return to Tahiti and legally sort our paperwork and sort the problem, or continue on.

Continuing on seemed a bad idea, with a major system failure evident in the first 20 miles of a 2,200 mile trip. Stopping in Moorea posed its own problems ? if we could figure out what was up and continue we’d be fine. But if we had to stop we’d then be in the country illegally and not likely to GET legal easily since it was a weekend coming up and a holiday to boot. Explaining our return and failure to re-clear in four days after the fact could expose us to some trouble.

Heading back to Tahiti we knew would be an automatic four day delay as well. Clearing out of Tahiti on a weekend is just not done, the offices are closed, and Saturday was All Souls Day so even normally open offices would be closed. Sunday is right out. So the likelihood is that we’d be stuck for paperwork until Tuesday no matter the problem with the generator.

In short, the problem with the generator is not something we could fix easily or quickly in Tahiti. We believe that we are experience another Main Stator failure as we had in Panama. The symptoms are the same. But until it fails completely we still have enough power production from it to charge the batteries if we baby it. If it fails completely the generator can still run ? it will not make A/C power to run the battery chargers but it WILL still charge the batteries with the on board alternators. So we can recharge, albeit slowly.

So we’re back on our way with some decisions to make about our generator when we get to New Zealand.