Day 4
Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Sat 22 Oct 2011 01:56
15°10.781N
110°22.9473E
Sat 22/10
0830LT
Slow progress
overnight. Although plowing through the water at 10-12kn in the early part of
the night with the mains, genny and monkey powering, our progress over ground
was 1.5-2kn less due to an unfriendly current.
Just before
midnight a glitch with our autopilot, which decided to engage itself with full
port lock brought Kubrick's HAL to our deck as the boat gybed with all sails
flying and no steerage until the pilot was shut off at the breaker. Mains locked
on their preventers and the monkey and genny wrapped around every and any wire
they could reach kept us busy for an hour untangling and restoring the sails to
their rightfull positions. We lost around 5-10nm ground and continued on without
the benefit of the monkey, whose condition was not to be known until a daytime
inspection, and the benefit of the rudder angle indicator which is connected to
HAL who now has his fuse removed and thrown
overboard.
Hoping to
complete the kite repairs today (and grow new fingers) so we can get back to
full steam.
SJB