Month: September 2011

Despite taking good care I found that I had some leeks in the deck. It was not much but it was in the worst possible place above the solar panels regulators.

I have a battery monitor. It was showing less and less in my batteries.

As I was depending on GPS for navigation I decided to shut down everyting tht used power. This included the AIS-transponder. After doing that the situation got worse and worse. The panels charged even less.

Strange tings started to happen. After I had looked at the GPS for a few minutes. The panels started to charged the batteries for a short time.

Electricity and me dont mix. Anyway I thought it was mighty strange. Becouse I did not have the AIS-transponder on one night I found myself very close to a ship.

I decided to take a chance. I decided it was the battery monitor which did not work. I switched on the AIS-transponder and sure enough the panels started to charge.

The AIS- transponder is excellent. Big ships se you and keep klear. Before they could run you down and no one would know. Now the know that other ships see whats happening. Therefore they are more careful. The know that there may be witnesses.

I recommend an AIS-transponder to everyone. That and the GPS and electricity have made life at sea very easy and comfortable.

Above is a screen shot from the french boat Tim´Jak as I was getting close to Porto Santo. When he saw that the size was 4 meter by 1 meter he did not belive it ( the AIS gives no decimals) he looked out nothing. He looked again then he could see among the white horses now and then something white, my sails. Now we are tied up to the same ponton and he gave me the picture.

After sleeping a night on my decision to end my voyage here I realesed that I would miss the sea to much. Therefore the new plan is to sail to Martinique instead to Florida.

I will probably start early in october.

There are two major problems with the boat. The first is that I got the mast to far forward. That means leehelm. That means that the chinerunners and the rudder are fighting each other. Instead of adding their forces they are cancelling them giving the boat very little lateral resistance.

I still think chinerunners are excellent but they have to be done correctly  like Matt does it.

The secound problem is that the boat got far to heavy. Thats because I have a tendency to overdo things, to make everything far to strong.

Vector a freindly German Yacht gave me a tow out of Kinsale. the weather was not good but it was getting late in the season so worse was to be excepted later.

The course was to windvard. When the other boats put up their sails they went much closer to the wind and of course also much faster.

Being heavy my boat took  much water over her but I had to keep fighting becouse I wanted to get outside the contenental shelf as fast as possible.

One night I was woken by heavy winds and rain. When I opened the hatch I was blinded by the rain on my glasses. At the same time a wave broke over her. I got a lot of water in the cabin.

To save windresistance I have no halyards. To get the sails up I use a stick. Unfortunatly now somehow the sails had got stuck. There was no other way to get them down than to climb the mast. It is not to difficult to do on land. In water, in calm water in a harbour it is also possible but more difficult. Now wind the wind blowing on a dark night half blinded I did not know what to do.

Unfortunatly there was nu volenters. I therefore took a deep breath and maneged to climb to the top of the mast and get the sails down.

Everything went well but later I was much more careful not to carry to much sail. Progress was therefore much slower.

It will take some time before I get organised and can write something useful about my trip. Here is only a commet on my water consumption.

I do have some material in the boat with witch help I probably can in a survival situation catch enough water to survive.

On my recent trip from Kinsale to Ireland I started with 45 liter water. I still have about half left more than 25 liters maybee more left. No problem. I have plenty of water.

The morning I sighted Porto Santo the wind died down. At sea I had been navigating without navigation lights saving my electricity for the AIS- and radar-transponders. So close to the shore I planned to put up a LED light powerd by AAA-batteries. It did not work. I had tested it before departure. I changed the internal batteries for lithium ones. It still did not work.

I decided to try to scull. The yuloh oar had only been tested a few minutes. It was a new design. But I had forgotten an important detail concerning the balance. It was difficult to work. After ten minutes I was tired. After half an houer I was more tired and already had blisters in my hands. Harbour was still a long way of.

I have a freind Rune Larsson. He is a ultramaraton runner. He can run 250 kilometers in 24 houers or something like it. Its super-humman. I have tried to make him teach me the secret. It must be fun he has repetedly told me.

In my difficult situation I was thinking of Rune. It must be fun I told myself and struggled on. At 72 years of age I dont have the force and stamia of my youth. On the windward side of the island the swell was choppy. The boat was rocking the oar went out of the water it was a fight with the oar. One houer went, two houers went. I was thinking of my freind Rune for him this would be nothing. He has also rowed across the Atlantic. I got the bright idea of putting on a pair of glowes to protect my skin. I changed the grip on the yuloh. I was tired and decided to make a shortcut over reef inside a small island. It was getting dark but the moon came out.

Once commited to the shortcut I just had to keep going. It was a question of life and death. The breakers on the vertical rocks was heavy and there was no way I could clime then. I have a tendency to put myself into interesting spots. I just had to keep going.

On my first visit to Madeira 1969 I had an second hand American chart. I still had that chart. It was from the 1930. I thought the rocks hadnt changed. Well they had not but more of them had been discovered. Finally after some breakers I came through. Next problem there was ny yacht harbour on my chart. The marina was not even here 1979 last time I was here, Finally in the dark. I tied myself up behind a very freindly Brasilian Catamaran from Bahia. I had been sculling for more then ten houers without a break. Thank you Rune. Fanny thing my body had no pain the next day. I am in excellent shape.

I was in calm water and safe. I was glad to bee alife. I was eager to start building my next boat. I decided to end the trip now and here and try get the boat shipped back to Sweden. At sea I had spent much of my time working on a new design and had many a wonderfull ideas of improvement. Learning by failure and learning by hindsigt.

This night I arrived in porto Santo after 30 days at sea most of the time on the  Bay of Biscay. It has been a difficult voyage. I am tired and will write more about the sailing later. The good thing is that I am in a excellent physical shape.. The news about the boat is not as good, but more about that later.