What a night. We had squalls throughout, but the early evening until 1 am was particularly active with lots of rain and wind. Fortunately Rae Ann was on watch, so I just woke up occasionally to see if she was alright. Rae did great navigating Nikita down wind in the 25 knot gusts and keeping her going as the wind would die away at the end. After a particularly massive squall the wind died completely, when we fired the engine we smelled a sharp burning smell. So we tore apart the instrument panel in the middle of the night to discover the engine hours meter had stopped working. Looking at it again today it seems that, it now works again, and it must have been moisture that got in and created a short. We saw no damage last night but need to look at it again carefully. When we fired the engine today there was no burning smell.
We also found that our genoa clew was chaffing through, normal for this much continuous use. We taped on a piece of rubber hose over the chafe area. Should hold for a while. Got plenty of hose and tape.
The day turned out better with good sailing winds and calming seas. As I right this though the squalls are building for another night time assault.
The Rain Soaked Crew of Nikita
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