Aqualuna - Left Behind but Not Left Alone

Yesterday was not a good day and we were unable to leave St Lucia with the World Arc fleet.
The last few weeks have been a high octane roller coaster of emotions, stress - and fear that we might have to pull out of the rally altogether as we’ve steered through an on-going engine problem with conflicting diagnoses and much teeth sucking from “well these 6BY3 Yanmar engines are absolute rubbish - what can you expect?” (not true) to “o without doubt you’re going to need a new engine and we can do that for you for US$50,000” (also not true!)

The “total oil pump failure” was in fact a software update that was needed for an engine interface. So over Christmas and New Year (not stressful at all!) we managed to get an updated one sent to St Lucia with FedEx delivering on time (yes!) and getting through customs without delay (YES!!) It was fitted with 36 hours to go and it worked perfectly …… except as it turns out, it didn’t.

As we left our berth yesterday for the start line the engine stopped - and so did our hearts. The next 10 minutes were pretty scary as we tried to re-dock at what felt like 50mph with no way to slow the boat down.

It now seems that we should have re-programmed the new interface to recognise the engine ….. a rather major detail that we were totally ignorant of. And so we just have to sit tight until Monday when we hope the specialist can fit us in to ‘reboot’ the boat.

How are we feeling? Well horribly disappointed and frustrated. Yesterday was a very low point: after literally months of preparation and psyching ourselves up for leaving it was just heartbreaking to hear the VHF countdown to the rally start and not to be out there with the fleet. But ….. we are not alone! The crews of Alpha Centauri of London and Copihue are also left behind so we joined up for many beers and much commiseration last night. And today we dust ourselves down and pick ourselves up again to get ready for work to begin on Monday so we can rejoin the fleet as soon as possible.

See you on the ocean very soon!
Claire