We had a very fast and (mostly) uneventful passage from Fort Lauderdale to Charleston over the last 2 1/2 days. With a north-ish wind blowing against the Gulf Stream the sea conditions were (to quote Karen), “Barfy.” Lumpy, and bouncy, but not anywhere near scary.

The biggest excitement was the second night, when the lashings that hold the head of our genoa to the top swivel broke. I quickly rolled up the sail before it fell down on deck. With our most powerful sail out of commission, we turned to the “Iron Genoa” (aka Mr Volvo) to keep us moving along. A quick trip up the mast will fix this, but I am not going to even consider doing that at sea short of a serious emergency.

Just to add to the fun, when we fired up the engine, it promptly overheated. A quick impeller change and that problem was solved. Frustratingly enough, the engine impeller was on the maintenance list for inspection/replacement here in Charleston.

We arrived here at the Charleston City Marina last night, and a few hours later, the most famous Amel Super Maramu around (S/V Delos of YouTube celebrity) docked right in front of us. It’s quite funny to watch a steady stream of groupies come down the dock posing for selfies with the famous boat as a backdrop.

We got the genoa down and folded up, but there still seem to be issues with the swivel that is stuck at the top of the forestay. Understanding what’s wrong and sorting it out will have to wait until I get up the mast.

We have the critical items on our boat taken care of, and now we’ll turn to the customer’s boat that we are delivering to Antigua. Hopefully just a few days of prep and we’ll be ready to go.