a hole in the parasailor
Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Sat 8 Sep 2012 10:35
At 1pm I started to feel a little sick with all the crazy rolling and set the parasailor. It's a lot better now, and since about 6pm, the ocean is getting a little calmer too, nice. Gisela was worried that I can't cook when the sea is rough, but that is actually not a problem. I do still cook, it just takes a little longer and I hit my head more often against the closet with the dishes.
Had some trouble with the autopilot at first. The idea is to do first a compass calibration, then a "seatrial calibration". The seatrial calibration needs lots of empty sea room, and calm seas. Aaaah, right. Not enough sea room in the lagoon, and no calm seas outside. So instead of the seatrial calibration I did a good old trial&error calibration.
With the old model that was relatively easy because there were only two settings: rudder gain and response level. And you could change both while in autopilot mode, so you could see the effect immediately. Now there are a four more relevant settings, and you can only change "response level" in autopilot mode, and for the other you have to go to manual steering, fiddle with the buttons while holding the boat on course, then turn the autopilot back on and see what changed. A little tricky. Liz will be proud to hear that there was no swearing throughout the whole process. Now it seems to be fine, and I love the remote control. Don't even have to lift my head up from the bunk anymore to check or change course. yay!
Just received an email from Vulcan Spirit, who arrived in Tonga today. Says there are lots of whales there, and almost none in Niue. So I'm thinking that maybe I should not bother stopping in Niue and sail the extra 300nm? Would also be nice to meet up with Richard & Ali again. But it's too early to say now, will have to see what the weather does.
Oh, and there's a hole in the parasailor. Not that big hole, which is supposed to be there, but a new little hole where the fabric is torn. A triangle about 20cm sides, where the starboard control line of the wing is attached. The ripstop nylon seems to do it's work though and it's not getting any bigger, so I decided to leave the sail up while it's rolly and take it down for repairs when the sea is a little calmer.