Chafe
Hamsi
John Anderson
Sat 1 Jul 2017 18:00
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.
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