Having set sail from Panama City on Tuesday night through into Wednesday, the Race For Water catamaran is making headway towards her new stopover, Lima in Peru, where she is due to make landfall on 15 March. On board, the 9 members of the crew are being subjected to a water restriction due to a faulty desalinator, which has left them in the lurch. However, a repair is underway. The band of nine remain in good spirits in the run-up to their passage across the famous equator in the coming days.
Tales and testimonies penned by Eric Loizeau and Anne Le Chantoux.
Copyright : Eric Loizeau
ERIC: Friday 2 March 2018 – Nocturnal thoughts
“Smooth seas, calm weather. The first watch is silent, pearly, in the light of the full moon subdued by a light veil of high cloud. These fine weather cirrus unfortunately haven’t brought us the salutary shower of rain we were all expecting, deprived for an indefinite amount of time by our fickle desalinator.
At midnight last night, the lively northerly breeze throughout the day quickly faded as it veered, so it’s coming from our starboard side now and hence from the East. We were very inspired to use our Kite yesterday, as it’ll probably be the only opportunity we get until we reach Lima….
Copyright : Eric Loizeau
We are subject to freshwater restrictions from now on, as our captain announced with the sombre air uses on occasion where necessary. So, the brushing of teeth and washing is done with sea water, with the chaps relieving themselves over the back of the boat. With our current reserves, we have just 50 litres a day at our disposal until we arrive safely in port. Fortunately, this unexpected and impromptu failure hasn’t hit us during a long transoceanic passsage. In our current situation, the nearest coast is only 250 nautical miles away, which is barely two days at sea so we aren’t exactly in survival mode! Phew, that’s you reassured!
On a solo night watch, it’s silent aboard our sleeping, floating, flying saucer. Black coffee is steaming in a white night cup. The AIS is all green with distant cargo ships making 20 knots to leeward. The sleeping boat gently sways and rocks, rolling from one side to the other according to the peaceful oceanic undulations. Night watch. Softness caresses the warm easterly wind on my skin, damp with morning dew.
This solar boat, alone on the Pacific Ocean, is both an empire of silence and a eulogy to slowness, calmness and gentleness. An islet of magical tranquillity in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which is so big and so calm this morning. To the west, nothing new.”
ANNE :
“Our 10-day stopover in Panama City went well aside from the fact that we weren’t dockside for long enough to be able to regularly restock our water supplies.
During these 10 days, our biggest constraint wasn’t being at anchor, it was water! Imagine, 11 of us living on Race For Water during the stopover, everyone going about their business: maintenance of the catamaran, public and press receptions and tours of the boat…; all that at 30 degrees Celsius!! After that, in the evenings, everyone dreams of a nice little shower! However, it’s not possible! The most awkward thing wasn’t necessarily this comforting shower, rather the lack of drinking water. You can do without showers and washing machines, but less so drinking water and buying plastic bottles of the stuff… we avoid.
We haven’t been able to run our desalinator because the water in the anchorage wasn’t the cleanest. We came off alright during the stopover though with everyone being careful about their consumption.
However, 9 of us set sail for Peru with around 700 litres of water in our two tanks. That’s enough because once we’re at sea we can start making water again with our desalinator. The first day of this delivery trip, we all made the most of it to wash our clothes and fill our tanks: the (daily) 500-litre one and the (spare) 1,000-litre one.
All of a sudden though, the desalinator came to a grinding halt!! Pascal (the captain) and Martin (the engineer) have been working on the problem and trying to find a solution for the past three days.
Martin Gavériaux and Pascal Morizot
We are subject to a water restriction once again. We have around 500 litres left. As such, we’re washing up with salt water. Showers are taken in sea water too with a mini-rinse in freshwater. We’re keeping our freshwater to stay hydrated, which is the most important thing.
We have around 12 days at sea to make Lima. We’re going to hug the coast so we can stop off to get freshwater supplies if necessary.
In the meantime, with a bit of elbow grease and the manual desalinator, I manage to produce 5 litres of freshwater an hour and as many litres of sweat!!!”
Others than this ‘minor’ water issue, we’re in good spirits.”