It’s been 2 weeks since the Nordhavn 40 Done Dreamin’ left Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, en route to her great South Pacific adventure. We at Pacific Asian Enterprises have been closely monitoring her progress as she tackles a leg that is phenomenally long for her size. Happily, owner Lawrence Rick, is reporting all things well aboard Done Dreamin’ and he has passed the crucial mid-way point with a fuel burn that has gone exactly to their calculations.
Here is Lawrence’s latest report to the PAE office:
April 27, 2005 1130 UTC
Location: N00’55 W124’31 Temp 81.3, Water Temp 87.9
Conditions: Wind 150 @ 4-6 kts. Seas are 3-4 foot swells, Para-vanes up, Heading 204’
magnetic
Course: Miles Completed 1645, Miles to Go 1130, SOG 6.4 kts. at 1400 RPM
Here is an update of our progress. So far, the trip is going pretty much as planned. We did encounter a very strong and prolonged (about 200 miles) Equatorial Counter Current. However, we pushed through that, and we are now making good progress. The fuel burn has been
exactly as we had calculated. We started out with the following:
- Port Main - 460
- Starboard Main - 460
- Fuel in jugs - 20
- Wing-Tank - 10
- Total - 950
The Jerry jugs are being used to store used oil. I thought I might as well
fill them with diesel and empty them into the mains, which I did on the
second day out.
I have calculated that we have 590 gallons of fuel left as of yesterday
noon. The site gauges are finally starting to give indications of around
615 gallons. I believe the difference is that the tanks when filled to the
filler cap as we did, actually hold around 470 gallons each. In any case,
you can see we are very fat on fuel with approximately 600 gallons to
complete 1130 miles. We have had excellent weather and have been able to
run with the paravanes up most of the time.
The boat has been trouble free with only a water-pump head failure on the
watermaker and the aural sensor on the engine overheat system. This brought
about some anxious moments as the alarm went off during normal cruise. We
immediately came back to idle and noted that the temperature gauge was
normal. After feeling the out and in hoses from the heat exchanger, we
disconnected the wire at the sensor. Since then we have been monitoring the
water temp gauge very closely. All seems well.
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