Monday, December 9, 2013

2011: Finally Crossing the Ditch

Crossing the Atlantic

Repairs Underway: Part 2

Genoa Furling Line.  On our trip across the Atlantic the only gear failure was the genoa furling line started to fall apart and had to be replaced with some spare line.  Not a big problem as it turned out.
Doing a little repair job whilst becalmed
HF Radio.  The HF radio worked as it should and we had good communications with the erstwhile and patient Herb Hilgenburg, the benevolent Canadian who guides so may cruising boats crossing the Atlantic.  We could talk to him quite well, most days atmospheric conditions allowing, all the way to the Azores.  We didn’t use him after that as there was only a thousand miles to go – one week.

Spinnaker Winches.  These have proved to be essential for flying spinnakers and they were also very handy for providing a bit of oomph when we needed to furl headsails in a blow, for example.

Hydrovane wind vane self-steering gear.  We used the Hydrovane almost all the way when crossing the Atlantic.  During a gale we found that sometimes the Hydrovane can be overwhelmed.  I have had to manually steer the boat back on course then reset the Hydrovane to, once again, steer the boat.

Skymate.  We had been really pleased with Skymate’s services (accessing weather forecasts & posting position reports daily on our tracker site) as we sailed through Eastern USA, and its initial assistance as WJ3 moved away from the coast heading for the Azores.  However we eventually began to have connection problems due to, I suspect, fewer available European satellites.  Once we’d made it to the Azores, we ditched it all together and concentrated on finding internet and getting weather reports from Weather Online & Passage Weather
 
I have to say that it disappointed when we were crossing the Atlantic even though we had told them when we were crossing.  Where it did shine however was "e-mailing" our GPS reports to our map & tracker - a twice daily task that kept friends & family in touch with our exact position mid-ocean.  (It can be set up to report automatically too, though we didn't bother.)  However, we disconnected it once we got to the Med because there is plenty of local coverage with the internet using a dongle on the computer.  More on that later. 

Of course, we still have all the hardware installed and will probably reactivate the system (there’s a reconnection fee if you disconnect for longish periods) when we depart the Med but only after assurances from SkyMate that we will be better served (for our Atlantic re-crossing) than previously.  I might add, when it all works, it’s a very good system & excellent safety measure.
Getting settled in for night shift

In Horta Marina, Azores taking a well earned rest

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