Pausing whilst reading in the cockpit this afternoon (   55:34.76N 10:43.61W    ) I noticed that one of the ropes that controls the windvane steering had chafed through its woven cover exposing the inner core, which had also started to chafe.  It had only done this in one place.  Watching the vindvane do its job, it seems that we installed the one non-fixed turning block about one centimetre away from last year’s position causing the rope to be nudged by the aft stainless steel railing at its more extreme range of movement.  This nudging then has caused the rope to rub on the edge of the sheave of the turning block and wear it.  Hard to take the rope out and steer myself as well as sort the rope out at the same time, particularly  when wind and sea conditions are less than tranquil after last night.  So far I’ve diagonally wrapped the frayed area with duct tape, and that seems to be holding and not chafing.  It was good enough for Apollo 11, and seems to be working here so far. 

 

Last night was less than pleasant, with strong winds and sea behind us.  I think that the blog has mentioned Hamsi's tendency to roll in these conditions previously.  Quite a bit of time was spent adjusting the sailplan to minimise the rolling, which was at times stopping me having a decent sleep.  Francesco may be interested that I considered putting the drogue out, and if I'd had a smaller one, would have done that.  In the end it seemed a reasonable trade to accept a night of uncomfortableness and bank the additional distance that came with that (since a drogue slows the boat down). The good news is that we did cover a respectable distance, and the cockpit reading was to enjoy the improving conditions as the low moves away.

 

No other vessels seen or detected by radar or AIS for 3 weeks now. Clearly that is likely to change soon.