We left our bouy at 6am under sail (we had rules for the race which penalised engine hours and also adjusted your time for boat length) and cruised through the atol and out the pass with half a dozen other boats. We had a good sail with the kite up and then quickly dropped it as the wind swung close hauled and increased. We were beating in 25 knots with full sail when Kate found some salt water under the sink. About the same time the autopilot gave up so with Kate hand steering I started to bail. I found around 20 buckets (the manual bilge pump chose this moment to rip its diaphragm!)of water under the engine and diagnosed a siphoning bilge pump caused by the extreme angle of heel (we had water on the side decks!).
The rest of the race was good with nice winds and although a few boats over took us we kept in visual range of most people and overtook Andy on Calysta 2 miles before the finish whilst flying our kite again.
We got in and anchored around 2pm on the 15th after 32 hours and 200 miles at sea. We settled down to tea when I found more water under the engine. After much head scratching I found the new stern gland we installed in Grenada had come loose and leaked when we motored in.
Today (16th) we did much bailing and cleaning of the bilges and finally have clean and dry bilges. We also tracked the autopilot problem down to a loose wire on the battery fuse. After a long day of boat jobs we finally went ashore to meet the 11 other boats from the race for a meal and prize giving. We had a nice meal and beers and I presented the certificates to everyone that Kate had made. We came 6th out of 12, but were within 1 hour of 2nd after 32 hours of sailing (we would have been around this much quicker had we not slowed down to bail water!).
A good night had and two tired Newts are now off to bed!
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