Hello everyone from Fish Pie. Bit of a disaster on the wind vane
self-steering gear, Horace, who we had to decommission as we have run out of
spare mounting bolts. Originally one bolt snapped off in use, fortunately
I had a couple of spares, but they have both failed as well, so without any more
bolts, we can’t use him any more. We have been quite frugal with the
diesel, so we have plenty to run the engine and charge the batteries, but not
enough to run the autopilot 24/7, so we will have to hand steer most of the way
from now on.
We are well over half way, as I write this we have 1224 miles
to St Lucia, from 2800 originally, so we’re getting there steadily with daily
runs of an average of 145 miles. Wind is averaging 25 knots from behind
which is quite manageable, but the swell is getting to everyone, making the
simplest tasks really difficult. Teas need to be made one at a time and
handed up individually, making 2 at the same time is a recipe for
disaster. Weather is clear and sunny today so we’re drying out after last
night’s squalls. We had a chat with another yacht on the VHF, and took
photos of each other, so look forward to swapping those in St Lucia. We’re
enjoying exactly the conditions we envisaged for trade wind sailing, so we are
having fun despite the technical issues.
I’ll update further in a couple of days, we are burning through the
satellite data, so need to cut back on the comms.
Hope the weather is not too horrible in the UK
A, J, J & M