Landfall in Mindelo, Cape Verde!
A couple of days ago, after 950 nautical miles and 8 days at sea, we made landfall in Mindelo Cape Verde around 9PM local time!
We started the passage on a high, with fantastic winds pushing us South and beautiful fishes on our lines, a copious Thanksgiving dinner and some stunning sunsets at our bow.
Our twin headsails setup proved very efficient, and with between 10 and 15 knots of wind on our back, we were propelled at around 6-7 knots through the water.
On the 5th day of our crossing, the winds got very finicky and we started the engine for the first time. We tried all possible sails configurations on our 6th day, but there was very little we could do with 5-6 knots of wind and we started the engine again.
On the 7th day of our passage around midnight, we found a little oil leak under the engine. The leak was very small and didn’t seem too concerning. We added more oil into the engine and resumed our motoring through the night.
The next day in the afternoon, the engine started to inexplicably and unevenly lose power, and we knew that something was wrong.
Out of nowhere, the revs would drop and slowly creep back up to there normal level. We immediately started troubleshooting, suspecting an obvious fuel starvation due to possible fuel contamination or clogging.
At this point, the wind was absolutely dead. We had changed the fuel filters and the engine was still functioning (though unreliably and we didn’t know for how long) so we carried on.
That night, the engine came to a full stop around 4AM. We changed the filters again, but two hours later, the revs went down again.
Our troubleshooting led us to 3 possible problems:
- Some form of diesel bug or fuel contamination
- Clogging in one of the pipes, injector pump or injector
- Poor control of the pressure coming through the air intake via the diaphragm (potentially broken), which would explain the little oil leak.
In any case, there was nothing we could do right then, and we were most likely going to need the help of a Diesel engine mechanic.
Our only option to move forward was to sail, and we decided to drop one headsail down, let one up and pole it out, which was an operation we didn’t want to carry out in the dark.
That day, the winds picked up to about 8-9 knots, and we were making way forward faster than we had thought, about 4-5knots through the water.
At this point, the engine was functioning for a couple of hours at a time, as long as we kept the revs low. So we sailed all the way to Mindelo harbor, and started the engine a few hundreds of meters away from the marina, time for us to dock the boat.
By then, the winds had picked up to almost 20 knots (typical!) and the operation turned sporty. By the time we were docked, we were all fine (including Polar Seal) and thoroughly enjoyed our celebratory beers!
We were lucky enough to share this passage with Jules and Tenney, two friends of ours and experienced sailors, who were of tremendous help through all the phases of this passage :)
We are now focused on getting our engine fixed in Mindelo, where we found a couple of great Diesel engine mechanics who are about to help us clean the tank, inspect the oil leak and find the cause of our issues.
Mindelo is a really cool place from what we have seen, and we can’t wait to explore it a little more! We have no clue yet when we will tackle the third and final leg of our Atlantic crossing, but one thing is for sure: we need a little rest before we do :)
Cheers from Cape Verde!
Ryan & Sophie