The night will be short for the skipper.
It is 11 p.m. and during Laurent’s shift the wind drops and we are calm despite the presence of squalls in the distance and all around the boat. Although we have used the engine very little since our departure from Mauritius, we have little fuel autonomy (around 120 liters) we decide to wait for the wind to come back.
Tossed around in all directions for hours, we finally decided to put the engine back on around 5 a.m. but for a few minutes only … A noise in the tree line that we had spotted the day before is made again hear. We are still more than 400 km from Mauritius, with no engine and no wind, things seem to get complicated. But to any problem, its solution. At dawn, Serge goes into the water to check the shaft and the propeller and finds that there are no problems.
So it’s a real mission that begins because you have to take out everything there is in the trunk to access the engine block. Fortunately, he knows the boat well and checks the engine mounts, the reverser bolts and the cake, everything seems normal. He dismantles the cable gland and it turns out once again that Michael had the right intuition: it is the propeller shaft that almost touches the stern tube. Our two friends embark on a realignment of the shaft and when the engine restarts more vibrations!
This wind prankster then decides to come back and we set sail again after 12 hours at a standstill. The morale of the crew is boosted and we enjoy a tuna carry prepared by the skipper. The boat is going at 6 knots and the news is sent to us by Daniel Tessier thanks to his Locatrack beacon which is a fabulous tool in navigation. It allows us to be followed in real time but also to send and receive SMS for free.
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