Good morning!

Very rough out here --- 25-30 knots on the beam. About 6pm last night, I noticed water over the floorboards! The thruhull for the sink in the forward head was open. We are leaning so far over, that the sink was below the waterline, so it just overflowed into the bilge and over the floorboards.

So, I closed it. Curious thing, the water kept rising anyway. So, we kept bailing with a bucket. Later, I noticed water dripping down from the headliner in the forward cabin. Naturally, this is all happening in the middle of the night, as all boat things tend to do, so I wasn't going to go up on deck and look for a source of water.

At dawn, Jeff and I went forward and discovered the anchor locker was completely filled with water. No wonder there was a leak! So, what happened? Before passages I stuff a rag into the anchor hawsepipe, to prevent water from going in there. It was so rough yesterday, that one of the waves blew the rag out, and onto the bottom of the anchor locker, where it found the one and only drainhole, and blocked it. Mystery solved!

So, Jeff and I retrieved the rag with a boathook, then bailed the thing out until it was nice and dry.

The boat was completely transformed! There was probably 800+ pounds of water in there. Without all that weight, the bow is rising nicely, so we aren't getting as wet.

We're moving fast and may have a 200 nm day!