54:36.458S 064:21.750W

Spindrift
David Hersey
Sat 26 Jan 2008 15:22

25/1/08 18:00

 

Earlier today I thought I was in a Black and White film, the sea and sky a riot of grey.

Then we had the Technicolor reel, and now we’re back to Monotones.  The viz is appalling. The wind has settled in to NNW force 7, still on the beam.  We are currently deeply reefed to give Steve half a chance of keeping control of dinner preparations.

 

I scanned 22 pages of documents in aid of the permit.  I now have to do a detailed itinerary.  I have discovered the insurance extension doesn’t cover us quite as far South as we’re planning to go. Having sent several unanswered e-mails to the insurance agent in France, I finally telephoned him, only to find he was having a very long ouique- end in the mountains and wouldn’t be back on e-mail until Tuesday. Anyway he thinks it will be no problem.  When we get to Ushuaia on Sunday I’ve got to find a good shore connection as I can never send all this from the boat and I want it in the officer’s in box when he arrives for work on Monday.

 

20:00

I am in a movie.  It’s called “The Fog.” Viz is down to a few hundred meters. What little protection we had from the Islands is long gone and the sea is up accordingly. Waves 2-2 1/2 meters from the side.  Suddenly they’re filled with a least a dozen small brown and white Dolphins shooting through them like torpedoes.   Even though I don’t leave the shelter of the companionway to greet them they stay with us for quite some time.

 

26/1/08 3AM

Its 10 degress C in the cockpirt, a damp penetrating cold.  Still bad viz. More Raymarine troubles and Gabriele had to hand steer for an hour.  The pilot keep going from “a

Auto” or “Track” to “Stand By” and there was a “I need calibration message.”  Eventually it came back enough to hold a course. The route dropped out of the plotter, but I reloaded it and its there.  We’re  not tracking but are on course.  The  so called Smart Pilot is blocking  info to the PC  so my Nav program doesn’t know where we are, but I can plot positions manually. Tomorrow we will switch the  whole  system off for a bit but no on wants to risk that in the night.

 

Noon

45 minutes after I went to bed. Nik woke me with another lost sea talk situation. This time I powered down everything and it seemed to clear.  This morning we noticed intermittent beeping from one of the pilot controllers with its own private “Sea Talk Fail” message, so maybe this specific controller is part of the problem. Also I’ve been in contact with Greg the wiring wizard, and he’s sent me an idiot’s guide in order to rewire so that the PC is completely independent of the Raymarine system. This is a trade off but a necessary one.

 

In the last 24 hours we covered 191 miles including 8 hours of motoring. The wind has not been particulrly favourable nor has it been strong against us.  It is likely we will motor most of the remaining 149 miles. We will have achieved our objective of getting to Ushuaia without getting beaten up.