Day 14 – Two weeks at sea, rudder lines and a squashed hose

The crews are continuing to enjoy the strong weather helping to give them a real shove towards Barbados. Ocean’s Elite have been pushing a little further south with the aim to hit more stable and favourable conditions later on in the trip, whereas Rowing Stones have been more focussed on improving their pace. It’s great to see both teams really succeeding with their aims and we can imagine the buoyant mood onboard.

Ocean’s Elite have been working on another repair to their boat yesterday. The bilge pump is an electrical pump in the centre of the boat where the footwell is. This area outside the cabin is a comfy place to stand and although water in this part of the boat isn’t a problem, it is nice to not have any excess weight in the boat. The pump pushes any water in this area out by way of a hose which passes through a locker and then up through the deck before being pushed overboard. The problem Ocean’s Elite were having was that the hose had become squashed by stored oars where it pushed through the deck. Obviously a squashed hose won’t carry as much water as an open hose and so the team have worked to replace this section of hose.

In this video sent back by the team, they show the whole process in what cannot have been an easy fix for them. We often comment that any job which needs to be done on a rowing boat takes twice the amount of time as the job would if it was in a house, and as soon as the boat is put on the water in a marina, the job takes twice as long again. I think we also need to add to this that when you’re at sea and hundreds of miles from land, that any job will take twice as long as when tied up at a marina!!

All in all, the crew did a fantastic job to fix a non-critical element and maintain their comfort. This further highlights their dependability and resourcefulness.

Rowing Stones on the other hand have been fixing a rudder line which snapped yesterday. The dyneema line, which runs from the foot which controls the steering to the rudder, down either side of the boat, is incredibly strong. Despite it’s small size it is theoretically capable of lifting the whole boat. However, over time and use gradual friction can wear it so much that a peak of force can snap it. Thankfully the crew are prepared and have a spare rudder line in their spares kit. The crew stayed calm and fairly quickly were able to make the swap to the new line.

When the crews row into Barbados we’re going to be calling them all MacGyver!