Trucking along very nicely now, at 5 to 6 knots in lovely gentle
conditions, about 120 miles from St H. We had a good day yesterday,
until 23.45 hrs , that is!! First Fred went on strike, and refused to
work , and then while I was trying to get the boat back on course,
the wind died ! Mom was about to come up on watch, so we had a quick
chat about our choices, and decided to motor directly for the island,
taking it in turns to hand steer. While mom steered , I tried
unsuccessfully to rig up the trim tab steering, and to start trouble
shooting Freds problem. I took over from Mom at 3.am, andvery quickly,
decided two things: We were both very tired, and I could see no point
in motoring for 24 hours just to make the Island at 3.0am ! Time to
"hove to", and both get some sleep!
If we needed to hand steer for twenty four hours, we would need at
least two four hour, hove to, sleep breaks. That would allow us to
arrive in daylight hours on Tuesday, and not be completely exhausted.
So we slept until 7.30am, and while Mary cooked up a mean breakfast
of sausage ,eggs, tomato on rye, I pulled out the electrical tester
and started checking things. I was relieved to establish that the
"brains" of the autopilot were fine, so the problem had to be with the
drive unit. To do the tests, I had to disconnect all the wires, and
sure enough, it transpired that the problem must have been poor
contact in one cable connector. Fred was back from the dead!
After breakfast there was still no wind, so we started motoring, until
9.30 when the wind picked up enough to sail again! As I said
yesterday, it is daft to make too many plans at sea!
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