We left Hadley Harbor bright and early at 6am. I was able to get everything prepped and ready to go and it was a pleasant sail all night.

I kept the motor going since we had some current issues and I didn’t want to spend two or three days making this hop.

Right now it’s 8:30am on Tuesday and we’re about 20 miles from the spot I’m hoping to anchor and we’re moving at about 5 knots. That means we have about four more hours to go.

I had been hoping to arrive and anchor about this time but I’d honestly forgotten about the tidal shifts inside of Long Island Sound. They are a pain and even though it’s flat as glass in here we’re motoring because if not we’d be going backwards.

One thing that we noticed about 30 minutes into our trip was that the alternator belt started to squeak and we stopped making electricity. I opened the engine compartment to discover that the bolt that holds the alternator to the engine block has lost it’s nut and had shaken loose. When I went to put it back on I discovered that the whole bolt was stripped and a bit melted/corroded. I suspect from the electrical short the previous trip.

I didn’t have a replacement bolt so that’s the first thing we’re going to do when we get to shore. Instead I used a pair of Vice Grips to hold the bolt in place. It’s worked well and I got the idea from the guy our first year when we had the water pump issue. I wonder if a locking nut would work better there? The way I did on the water pump.

I’m looking forward to replacing the engine with an electric. It will require me to change the way I sail/motor but the changes I think will be well worth it. I do think I want to replace the rigging (both running and standing), the furler, and both sails before I make the jump that way we are in the best possible position sail wise to sail most of the time and motor as little as possible.

So many things that need done on the boat. It’s going to be a while before I can get a Catamaran and that’s okay. I want this boat to be the best it can be. And honestly if I can save $50,000 a year after the boys move off then I can both upgrade this boat and save.