Author: Pete
Location: 18°55.686S’ 167°19.141W’
Date: July 26, 2015
Day 8 at sea.
Well the fun keeps on flowing our way! We’ve had our hands full the last couple of days with a shot autohelm. A day past Palmerson the seas and wind became heavy. We had a good deal of rain and were taking heavy waves on our port bow and port quarter. Winds kicked into the 30’s and we got some waves big enough to wash over the TOP of the boat. We hunkered inside and watched the fun. The boat was slewing heavily in the seas, which I think was the death of the piston drive of our autopilot. Eventually, we got an alarm and the old girl gave up the ghost and wouldn’t hold a course anymore. So we’ve been hand steering again! It’s amazing how taxing sitting, watching the horizon and keeping a good compass bearing is! We’ve been steering or sleeping.
I pulled the linear drive of the autohelm out. Digging in the engine compartment in high seas is sort of like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel while trying to build something out of Legos. Managed to get the drive piston off and opened it up in my bucking workshop in the boat. I was hoping for a fried wire or something easily identifiable but it was not the case.
Today the gale broke and we have sun and blue sky again and with 17 knots of wind we’re ripping along at 9 knots. Woohoo! We’re planning to stop in Nuie, rocky island country with good diving, cool our jets for a day or so, then sail to Tonga which is two days away.
Hand-steering aside, all good aboard.
oh my god just reading this and your last post – especially the part about digging around in the engine compartment during high seas – made me seasick! Good luck!