Location: 2° 53 S, 36° 58.7 W
Friday 12:00, 06.23.2006

The Schooner Maggie B’s noon position on Friday 23 June was 02° 53 S 36° 58.7 W. Our course is 220 degrees at 6 knots. We have 204 miles to go to Natal. The wind is 170 degrees at 15-20 and Natal is bearing……170 degrees. We are headed in towards the coast of Brazil, hoping to get a break on the current that is pushing us NW. The coast is about 100 miles away and we should pick up soundings at about ten o’clock tonight. Our trip log is now at 2039 NM.

The current belief is that our feathering propeller, a J-Prop, has somehow eaten its internal gears and now the three blades are essentially free floating. Why? Who knows — don’t think that it was abuse. We just haven’t been using it that much. One possibility is that we picked up some sort of trash, which fouled the prop and as worked for us routinely, it had some sort of extra stress which caused it to fail.

We do have a spare non-feathering prop. Depending on technical advice (a fine use for this email system), we may give a try to replace at sea it if we find some quiet spot along the coast before we get to Natal. I remains to be seen. In any case, Natal is spread along a river that looks from the chart to be “friendly” for sailing anchoring. Check out the harbor on Google Earth!

We have plenty of water, plenty of food, but must make port soon as we are running low on chocolate (we are now eating cooking chocolate, horrors). It is amazing to me that on deck it will be a real thrash, with rain and spray in equal (industrial strength) parts, wind blowing 20-30 knots, and down below it will be mostly quiet, warm, dry and the off duty crew will be sleeping soundly.

All is well.