Day 8 - Wind Moderated
Bonkers
Donald Macdonald
Mon 22 Jan 2024 18:15
Gybed last night at 2000hrs as wind had shifted a little and routing preferring a little more south to get through light winds tomorrow and Wednesday. Harold did not like port gybe at all and was regularly steering big 120 degrees S's and setting off alarms for 'Off Heading', 'Rudder at full lock' in the wind mode. This started happening on John's watch and I was also hearing alarms from him too. Got out of sleeping slumber to assist, by then John was helming and saying that it was difficult for him too with the waves often catching us. Did a standard computer fix, turned Harold off for 30 seconds (with all the extra alarms going off with that), then back on. Harold appeared good again, but not for long. Solution was to put him in heading mode and for us to keep adjusting heading with the wind shifts to keep us at 160 degrees offwind. Still some large turns when a wave caught us but always abe to recover. Busy night for us both monitoring situation. Wind mode OK when wind bel
ow 16
knots which was not often.
After 16 hours we gybed back to starboard and Harold likes that and behaves faultlessly.
During the afternoon the wind has been decreasing and we are down to a single reef which will probably come out in the next few hours. Looks like our target date of arriving Antigua on 5th February will slip due all light winds forecast, including mill pond conditions again. We need to monitor when we use engine most efficiently with respect to fuel we have left.
Last night did not run the fuel cell to keep batteries charged as expecting plenty of sunshine, instead lots of rain till midday and batteries only recovered to 91.6% from down at 71.4%. Tonight fuel cell will be on and will switch cool box off.
One tiny bit of maintenance today, stuck back a foam filler in companionway that helps keep water out. Husbandry jobs included mopping out aft locker/steering area, forward cabin tidied as plastic box with food cans in fell to cabin sole with such a bang John was out his bunk wondering what had happened and I was already looking around the rigging etc. The box when fell broke the whole side off and rusty food cans everywhere, did an emergency tidy up and John went back to his bed.
Dinner Chicken meatballs in gravey, mash, peas, cheese the madarins for sweet.