Day 30 – Drifting North, Lost milage

30 Mar, 07 – 21.30
18.1285N,32.2066W
24 hr progress: 29.1 Nautical Miles

Jolly pleased with my performance of 29.1 NM miles, taking into account the absence of a rudder. It's been twice as hard rowing without.
The boat has a tendency to start drifting towards the NW when left unattended. This usually happens when I stop for a meal, get some rest etc.
I've lost about 12 nautical miles of progress towards SW (drifted NW instead) since I've taken the rudder out. From a psychological perspective, coping with the hopelessness of losing mileage at times gets very frustrating and hard to deal with in terms of staying motivated.
Changing the focus back to finding a solution to the rudder, I have been working my way thru the different options. Option 1: Putting a drogue from the stern Option 2: rowing without a rudder Option 3: fixing the existing rudder Option 4: fitting the spare rudder Option 5: Adjusting the ballast.
I've experimented with putting the drogue on a 30m line out from the stern. It gets the stern into the waves, but there is way too much drag and progress is very slow - less than 0.5 kt. I also tried to partially collapse the drogue using the trip line, so as to reduce the drag but that did not work out too well either. So, the drogue being a non-starter, rowing without the rudder seems to be the only option for now.
It's going to take me a little while to adjust the original rudder, fix the screws, hinges and possibly saw a bit off it, so as to reduce the surface area and thus the wave pressure on it.
In our other story of the day, the beard is coming along fine a-la-castaway. The beard's one month anniversary comes up tomorrow which also happens to be the day I complete one month at sea. So we will be having a joint celebration onboard with some aquavit.
The wind started to drop as advertised and I expect it to reach around 10 knots over the weekend, so will be getting as many miles in as possible tonight.
More tommorow,
B & Miss Olive

Ah! Ze Beard