Well, it had to happen again! Just when we were relaxing over happy
hour last evening, celebrating breaking the 100 to go mark, Fred died
again! I cut off the suspect terminals ,and replaced them, but to no
avail. Back to hand steering, across the awkward crass.swells on the
port tack. We decided once again to carry on until midnight , by which
time we would be in daylight motoring distance for today, and then
heave to for another 4 hour sleep. Just as we wer about to hove to,
the AIS starts screaming , alerting us to the presence of the first
boat we have seen for 10 days, the Amnity Ace, passing within 5 miles.
Mary decided to try Fred again, and he decided to play ball. So I took
the next two hours, Mary the next two, and then I took the 3 until
6.am, when we planned to make our last Gybe for the island.
We are now less than 10nm from the Island, and less than 20 to
the James Town mooring position. Pulled out the Q flag, the ST H
courtesy flag, etc, and put Jimmy Cornells suggested anchoring
position ( from his noonsite web), into the GPS. I guess we should be
pretty secure there... its right in the middle of the island according
to the Garmen Blue charts!(15.55.975S, 5.43.174W)
Check it out yourselves!!
Its taken a while for the penny to drop, but on the run
between Valdivia and the Island, there is a wind shift every night
where the wind backs from SE by 15-20 degs. One should plan to be on
the stb tack, on the right of the Rhumb line to capitalise, and then
shift the port tack by day. One could effectively cut down on ones
Gybing angle from +/- 70/80 to 55/65. Needless to say we screwd
thisup, and managed to widen our to +/- 90/100 between gybes. Tom
Morgan makes reference to these shifts, but does not suggest. Guys
flying bags could do even better by recognising these shifts. Old
cruising bums like ourselves took to long to wake up, and will have
ended up sailing a lot of unneccessary miles!
Nevertheless, this Shearwater is an unbelievable boat! No wonder
Petr Musik won the Governers Cruiser div . When you give her the
scope, she flies!
Being old cruising type bums, we played it very conservatively, with 3
reefs, when 2 would have sufficed, and staysail instead of genoa, and
heaving to for a sleep! We ended up sailing over 2000 miles to do the
1791 ...and 13 days, which is what we had predicted to friends and
family anyway.
All we have to do now , is sort out Freds problems! Sometimes, if
we turn off the instruments and the autopilot, leave it a few minutes,
it will work ok...for a few hours. It has just died again with the
fault indicating 'Rudder drv". I will have to read the manual, and
Email Steve Searle for advice. Does it for example have brushes which
can wear out, etc. Failing an easy solution, I might have to ask
someone to source a replacement unit and send it with Governers cup
boys. Will chat later.
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