24 Hours in to AZAB Race 49:00N 7:00W. 11.10 UT to 11.10 UT

Scherzo AZAB 2015
Eddy
Sun 7 Jun 2015 11:22
Note to James - please forward, removing our email address and adding the tracker address!  i hope the photos are small enough. i compressed them hugely.  ! don’t think there is any longer need to send noon positions.  if you know differently please let me know.  Also if you can, tell me how to optimise the Autopilot (AC42 with AP24 controller) - its using a shed load of power.  we seem to be very slow in this light wind.  Thank you again for all the amazing help over the last few weeks prior to departure.


Day One started very well.  Good start and kept up with (some of) the quicker boats in a SW5. Quite a rough sea given the wind.  Jane, Pete and James on Awelina saw us off in grand style.  Ran with Rob Withers of Halcyon of Hebe for quite a while until they chose a more southerly course and we stayed up on the wind. Couldn’t lay the Azores so kept on 210 to 220T until Scherzo tacked suddenly causing us to curse a good deal.  It seems that and the autopilot had packed up - at around 5.30 in the afternoon.  I suspected that the solenoid in the RAM (the bit that ‘bites’ the wheel when the autopilot is engaged) had failed.  So, fiddled with the electronics and suddenly it seemed to work.  Much premature toasting of the brilliance of the repair.   The boat stayed on course for all of 30 seconds until it again went awol from our course - with no friction on the wheel.  At this point it was clear the system had packed up.  10 days of hand steering 3 hours on, 3 hours off not a great prospect… Particularly on a broad reach in a forecast Force seven.  Do we go back and get it fixed and then continue, or just grin and bear it?  Harriet was convinced that the grin and bear it approach was the only one, as was I (unwisely.)

So, in a bid to find out whether the solenoid could be operated on and fixed somehow we removed fifteen years of old lines (ropes) from the locker under the helmsman and unscrewed the floor pan - to find that the bracket that attaches the auto helm arm to the rudder stock had sheared off.  It is quite intricate and beautifully machined - but for all that it is well and truly broken. Luckily i had the parts to fashion a more agricultural one from a large bolt and several nuts.  So, success at last and although we had lost a few places in the race, we at least do have steering.  Felt rather sick from all the work with my head in a locker, so Harriet cooked rice, curry and salad.  immediately restored and Scherzo bouncing along again in the right direction. 

Quiet night with a good wind at the start, but dying around 4am.  Got up at 04.30 from my off watch and helped Harriet put the spinnaker up in first light and set it on a very broad starboard reach  I had to shackle some blocks on the stem by the anchor and whilst leaning over the bow some malicious force made us pitch like a rocking horse and i ended up with a very cold and salty shampooing.

Very sunny morning with very high pressure building - approaching 1040 at dawn.  Rather slow progress - against the tide and on almost a  dead run.  Swift, a competitor, ran past us just with white sails, so i shook my fists at the spinnaker to try to get another knot.  Found that i hadn’t engaged the gearbox on the propellor since i charged the batteries in the middle of the night.  This is worth half a knot at least. Anyway, with this wind we aren’t exactly rushing along.

Bacon rolls for breakfast and roasted the chicken as the oven is hot.  Great smells, good contrast to the loo, where the pump to remove waste water from the floor has clogged, so another job ahead and, meanwhile, whiffs of public loos.  Stop Press.  All done.  

Engine used for 2 hours for charging.  Water negligible.  Sleep - not quite enough.  Stuggeron - 8.  Miles in 24 hours - only 142nm.