Summer

Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Tue 15 Oct 2013 07:58
00°15.84S 025°53.35W

0745z 15/10

Crossed the Equator last night with a shot of rum to celebrate, shortly
followed by Jed sharing his nip and anything left in his stomach, with
the fish.

Apart from being colder today, conditions haven't changed much. Still
SE-SSE at 10-15kn, so close hauled on port tack trying to head as much S
as possible. Forecast shows the winds moving to the E in a couple of
days which will help us to avoid running aground in South America.

Last two nights spent hand steering - have discovered not a bad option -
helps to keep the watch crew awake.
After a lengthy session in the lazarette yesterday, followed by some
jury-rigging and soldering, the autopilot was repaired and put back into
service for the day. But the just before sunset it lost power (different
problem) as have many devices on board (a black water tank pump, galley
sink pump, various power sockets. So will be another day in laz and
bilges tracing 20 year old wiring plus numerous hacks since. The pilot
shouldn't be too much problem as should be able to bypass existing
connections and hot wire it direct to any convenient (and working) power
source.

Otherwise, genset working perfectly so batteries are charged. Watermaker
blown pipe repaired and now have full water tanks. So all in all most
critical stuff ok!

SJB