OK we lost 2 of the 3 blades of our windgenerator but the good news are that it just started charging the batteries an hour before.. so we know that the windgen is working. (when it got new blades..) But after a usual control view into our bilge, we recognized that our rudder incl. the rudder compartment is moving and there is water entering the boat at every movement! We´ve been around 20 nm offshore and around 50 nm south of Ensenada. It´s not amusing when you see water on the floorboards when you barely see any land.

At this point we had to decide sailing further south or turning back towards Ensenada.We decided to head back to Ensenda, because there's no other boatyard between Ensenada and La Paz/Cabo. And Cabo is around 800nm away.
So we tacked and sailed closed hauled towards the shore. Sailing closed hauled has the benefit to reduce the pressure on the rudder by triming the sails and we don´t have to run the autopilot. reducing the pressure on the rudder reduced our waterincome a lot.

The wind blowed with 35 knots out there and the nice waves mentioned before turned into Mountains we had to climb with a damaged rudder...scaring! After a while the outer coat of the genua sheet broke, and we recognized a cut in the genua top.

Time to go back to shore!

we reached the coastline just before darkness and followed the coast to Ensenada under Engine. We arrived Cruiseport Marina in the middle of the night about 2am, but we were happy to be safe. Tired, raddled, but safe.
After some sleep we went to Baja Naval - the boatyard - to get an appointment for haul out Zero. The disappointing news: two weeks waiting time, because they were too busy!

Now we are on the hard since Thursday last week. After the mechanics and carpenters had a serious look on the rudder, we got the sad news: worst case! The wooden rudder compartment is totally rotten and has to be renewed. Time to be finished: 7-10 working days.
Right now we are making good progress and the boatyard is working continuous to get us fixed, so we can hope to leave at the end of this week. Let's hope the best!
Meanwhile we allowed us a day off and explored the coast from land. James from Cruisport Marina gave us a lift and joined us at the beach. So we found a small nice bay, where we had a tiny surf, a sunbath and some resting time. James, not pretty much into swimming, cleaned a great part of this beach while we were surfing, just because one person can make a difference! I love his attitude.
When we finish the work on Zero, our "race" begins. We lost some time, that we have to hurry to reach Guymas right in time.
You see, you can be curious if we can make it and what's happening in our next episode of "Sailing with Zero"!
Take care!