Wednesday 13 July
S 2 03.531 W 137 26.393
Hello Friends and Family,
Important info!
I am having problems with my satellite messaging and weather system. It wouldn’t work last night or this morning. I was able to get it to work this evening but I am not confident that it will continue to. So if you don’t hear from me that is why! Nothing is the matter and don’t worry, I am only 475 miles from port, I could walk the rest of the way!
At 4:00 AM I was awoken by a sudden increase in wind velocity, it was already 25 kn. I didn’t want to get caught a second time and was in a conservative sail configuration. As the high winds intensified and continued I reduced sail more until I was under Stormsail only. This was not a squall it continued all day and I have only now been able to add sail back as winds have dipped to 20 kn and less.
While I was in minimum sail mode and not going very fast I tried to make water, but with only modest success. I have enough for a day or two without touching my emergency supplies but I would like to try to make more sooner than I need it. Recently I was wondering why my water tank was filling as fast as it was? It isn’t getting full because of the heel of the boat the tank reaches the overflow before filling up. As a result I am carrying less water than normal and have to make water more frequently.
I have been fortunate to have been put in touch with an experienced SSB user. He has given me a lot of good input on trouble shooting my system. An interesting thing is that he installed a new navigation and communications system in his boat similar to mine and since then his SSB has not worked. He has so far been unable to locate the problem and his SSB is out of
operation. I am not optimistic about getting mine going. If I just want to listen I can buy a new receiver radio fairly inexpensively however having the ability to communicate on the SSB would be cool especially in light of the Satellite system possibly being unreliable.
This section of the voyage I had envisioned as being a cake walk, it hasn’t been! I am hearing a few stories from other boats about their passages and it sounds pretty typical to have some challenges. One couple lost their auto pilot and had to hand steer 24 hours a day for days, that is torture! Autopilots are notoriously unreliable in long term use so self steering gear is a must in my opinion.
More soon if the satellite system continues working.
Ben Lindner, S/V DAWN
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