My thanks to Georgs for posting Bluewater's daily offshore reports here and to those of you who commented. We're still enjoying Bermuda--what a terrific place for wayward sailors, er, passagemakers! At the moment, N47 Bluewater, N43 Summer Skis (Jim Fuller) and N62 Adventure (Dave Crannell) are lined up on the east dock at RBYC . . . it looks a lot like another Nordhavn rally! Let me respond to some of your comments: --Oil changes, I was careful not to say that my approach of not shutting down is not the only approach valid on this. Still, I noted that most of you who weighed in tend to agree with me: shutting down the main engine in mid-ocean on a passagemaking power boat to check oil is usually not a terrific idea. Perhaps Bob Austin's vote of dissent comes from the fact that he usually had sails as a primary means of propulsion and his mechanical skills are no doubt far better then mine! There's a lot to be said for: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. --Oil changes, take 2. Brue Kessler's approach is to have a Mourphy gauge which shows oil level at all times, and that would seem to make a lot of sense. I've heard that Alaska Diesel doesn't like that, however, because it adds additional complexity--more to go wrong. Any thoughts? --VHF range and booster amps. I was surely surprised to hear Bermuda Radio 190 miles out and all the more surprised when they responded to my call at about 180 miles. My electronics guy did not want to install the 130-watt booser amp because 25 watts is the limit in U.S. waters, but we could not find any rule which prohibited having a booster amplifier as long as it's not used in U.S. waters. The booster is on a separate breaker and when the breaker is off, the radio transmits its usual 1 (low) and 25 (high) watt power. I like the idea of being able to boom out a VHF signal when/if we really need to--and I admit that this time around we did it only to test it out. --On speed and mileage. Jim Leishman weighed in suggesting that perhaps our 9 sq. ft. Naiad fins were out of alignment. That sounded like a smoking gun to me, so I got instructions for measuring alignment from Naiad and took a dip in the 76-degree water here a couple of days ago. Sure enough, it appears the port fin is out about 5.5 inches and the starboard fin about half that. No doubt dragging that much fin through the water sideways costing us both speed and fuel, and we'll try to have the fins realigned shortly after reaching New England. I'm trying to compile a real world database on N47 RPMs, speeds and fuel burn, and I'd welcome any input anyone might have. Peter if you have fuel data on the five N47 deliveries you did I'd love to have 'em offline: miltbaker@mindspring.com Bluewater is still about two inches overpitched on the prop (34x32 instead of the design 34x30) which is less than ideal and which we will deal with as soon as we can. Dean Wiley, our fist-rate crewmember on that leg, suggests that the prop pitch is perhaps more a problem than the fin misalignment. I don't know which is more of a problem. Weather permitting, we expect leave for Newport in a little over a week. --Milt Baker, N4732 Bluewater, RBYC, Hamilton, Bermuda