Well, we had hoped to keep our motoring under 20 hrs as we headed to the Marquesas. But the wind just didn't cooperate.
We ended up repairing our larger spinnaker fondly named "Joshua" after Joshua Slocum. He was the first recorded man to have motored around the world solo. Joshua handled the light wind okay so far with our makeshift repairs. We are only doing around 5 kts with the spinnaker- no engine. We are praying to our special angel Jimmy for more ( a little) wind and our safe landfall in the Marquesas by Wednesday afternoon.
With just under 200 miles to go we have recorded only 31 total hours of engine time. That's not bad considering we have sailed 15 days and 1 hour and 45 minutes. That is 330 hours and 45 minutes without the engine and under sail alone. We have sailed our little hearts out. We have had so many
sail changes I can't remember them all. We have had every combination of sails we could think of to keep moving. Our prop problem has complicated our lives but challenged us to sail better. We are limited to 1600 engine RPM's due to vibration which limits motoring speed to 5-6k.
Once on land our next mission is to find the best place to relax and have a cool drink and get the large pile of wash cleaned.
Rosemary Bill and Matt