15°10'N 30°31'W - Today started like a fine day. On my now regular watch from 00:00 to 03:00, I had an average of 7 knots, and so did Rob on his after me. All was well and we were making great miles, towards Barbados even. 'Welcome to the Trade winds, baby!' And it wasn't until my next watch at 13:00, before the shit hit the boomvang.

It all started when André looked into the 'engine room' for a regular inspection. When he came up, he was looking like he discovered the steering installation was broken or something. This was in fact, almost totally true.
There was a big crack in the base plate of the steering installation, which could give up any moment. If that would happen, the whole thing would jam. We had two options: repair it at sea, or head back for the Cape Verdes, about 400 miles behind us by then. Choosing the second would definitely mean canceling the trip for Rob and me.
André and Rob went to work on it, turning the KeeS upside down, while I tried to keep her on course to Barbados, steering it with the mainsail sheet. It was a hell of a task, for all of us. But after 9 hours of hard work they succeeded in supporting it with a wooden plate. And I had even kept up my 7 knots average (though slightly off course, because my main goal had been to keep the boat steady).

But our bad luck wasn't over yet. In the mean time Fiona discovered that the kilos of 'fresh' chicken we bought only 2 days ago in Mindelo - then solidly frozen - was the reason our fridge smelled like a rotten dinosaur egg that had skipped an ice age or two. So much for our supply of fresh meat. And then, when the whole steering installation finally fixed, the engine didn't start because of all the power we had drained from the batteries over the last days.
In the end we got it running, but that was probably just because, like I prefer to think, Murphy's Law does not apply at sea. At least, that's what someone told *CLICK*

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