Location: 1° 02.0 S, 36° 18.0 W
Thursday 12:00, 06.22.2006

The Schooner Maggie B’s noon position on June 22 was 01° 02.0 S 36° 18.0 W . We are currently headed 235 degrees at six knots with a wind from 170 degrees at 15-30 knots. The 30 knots comes in the regular rain showers that really should be called squalls. You suit up for one and it is over by the time you are all strapped in, you get out of the foulies, settled in and the next one is on you.

We are 283 miles from Natal, still off the coast of Brazil. Fortaleza, Brazil is the nearest town, about 240 miles away. We have come 1930 NM so far.

We are having teething problems. People say that it takes a year or two to settle in a custom boat and we have only been at it for five months since launching and certainly have done a lot in that time. Teething sounds trivial, but I sure remember a lot of crying. Our recurring problem is the attachment for the main throat halyard. It was originally too low and chafed through before Bermuda and then we had some new pieces put on in Antigua and one of them popped off at 0430 this morning, dropping the main a bit and causing us to lower it the rest of the way.

We got things back fixed up with a bit of a jury rig so that the main is up with one reef and it will be fine until we can get a little more work done on the mast when we are next in port. These masts are modern marvels — strong and light — but you can’t just screw something into them like a wooden mast.

We are also having some concerns about the engine. Somewhere along the line we seem to have gotten some algae in the fuel. We dosed it with algicide in Barbados, but the dead stuff seems to have partially clogged one of the engine filters (yes, the one filter that we don’t have a spare for!). The engine still runs, but at reduced RPM. The latest anomaly with the engine is that it runs satisfactorily, the gear box is fine, turning the prop shaft in both directions, but we are getting no thrust at all from the prop. We have a feathering prop, which may be doing something too clever, but the more likely probability is that the prop has come off. When the weather calms down a bit, I’ll be going over the side to check. We do carry a spare prop, but no spare prop nut. Things may get interesting.

We have changed our destination back to Natal, to take care of the boat problems before we have fun on “three of the top ten beaches in Brazil.” I’m already studying Natal harbor to find a nice open, safe spot to anchor if we have to do it under sail.

Never a dull moment.