Boring motoring, but plenty of fixing!!
Betsy
Sun 17 Jul 2022 12:19
We managed to get a wrap in the mainsail mast furling line when we tried to take the reef out yesterday morning. The sail was jammed solid half in, half out. This is obviously not a good situation!! Lots of discussion about the cause & how to fix it over breakfast, followed by rounding up, taking the pressure off the sail, levering the foil backwards with a spanner & poking the line with a screwdriver. To our relief, it popped out quite easily -in future we must keep the lazy furler line taught too - it seems our refurbed knurled wheel is very grippy - for the technical, it needs a stripper, like an anchor windlass!!!
On Kate and Tom’s watch (there is great rivalry as we are on 12 knots max, they are 10.8) last night they were just saying how fab George (the autopilot has been) when it stopped working…..So at 0145 we had the bunk in the aft cabin in bits to test the actuator and drive motor with a multimeter. I reviewed the Raymarine manual - all 448 pages, but couldn't find a fix. It seems that the system will tell you what the error is via a code. Except it didn’t. We tried turning it off and on again - several times!! Checked the fuses too. We concluded that it must be a software programme issue and I spent a ‘happy’ 90 minutes on my 0200- 0500 watch on the Raymarine set up menu. Happily it started working again & we now have a little autopilot icon on our nav screens. It seems to be a sailor these days you need to be a whizz at software programming!
T & J continue to amaze with culinary delights - yummy chicken fajitas last night & fresh croissants with home made black currant jam for breakfast.
The next 24 hours promise more light winds, plus some headwinds force 2-4 for 18 hours or so, perhaps not such an easy ride for us. Looks like the favourable northerlies come back after that - good job really as we will need to be thinking about refuelling without some more wind.
Love to all
Simon
Noon position Sunday 17th July (yes apologies for the typo yesterday, it’s easy to lose track of days out here!)
42.19.26N 9.10.26W