Day 98 - Change of Plans

The boat is at the moment headed North toward Buenos Aires, Argentina.

After passing the Falkland Islands I grew unhappier each passing day with my situation and the prospects for the passage to Cape Town. Progress was much slower than I had anticipated and I had made plans for a 60 day passage, which would have stretched my fresh water and diesel resources to the limit but more importantly exposed the boat to a longer period of risk. And to make it in 60 days I had to be prepared to drive the boat harder. I figured that if I lost the mast further out than 1000 miles from Cape Town I would set off my EPIRB, prepared to accept rescue and abandonment of the boat.

Yesterday morning in response to Mark's wish to me for happy sailing I responded that my sail and rigging problems had taken all of the joy out of the cruise. I read these words and realized that I had to do something. I don't mind the privation, and I can deal with danger when it comes (what other choice is there?), but perhaps because of the 3 years of university statistics I am extremely sensitive to risk, probabilities, expected gain, that sort of thing; and I had a really bad feeling about pushing on to Cape Town. It was just too risky and the passage was going to be an ordeal rather than a joyful adventure. Probably 20 times a day I check the headsail and port lower shroud to make sure that they are still intact. Every time I hear a hard sound my eyes are immediately up to make sure that the mast is still secure. Every time the boat gets up a head of steam I look at the angle of heel and reduce sail to relieve the load on the rigging. This is no way to sail a boat if it can be avoided.

I brought up David's software on the laptop, zoomed out to include South America, changed the image type from Google satellite to road map, and right away saw Buenos Aires. I then used the distance & bearing function to see that it was less than 900 air miles away. 900 miles to Buenos Aires is a lot shorter than the 3100 miles to Cape Town. Buenos Aires is a world city and I figured that it would offer all of the services that I needed. I saw it as the solution to my problem and immediately I felt better. I sent off a quick message to Brenda and Stephen telling them of my idea and asking for information on marinas in Buenos Aires. It was about 11 PM in Fremantle and Stephen was still up and responded immediately. Ten hours later I had all of the information that I needed for the moment on marinas and yacht clubs, with references to haulout facilities and the statements "North Buenos Aires has a large and very friendly sailing community" and "There are good facilities available and also a good range of marine supplies in Buenos Aires." This information sealed my decision.

Reaching the Rio de La Plata will not be as easy as it would have been had I proceeded along the coast to the west of the Falklands because I am now far off the coast and the prevailing winds are from the west. However, Buenos Aires is to the northwest and I figure that I've got ample time to play the winds and work my way west before reaching latitude 34S30 of the city. I'll undoubtedly do a lot more than 900 miles of sailing to get there, but it will still be very much shorter than Cape Town.

The latitude of B.A. is similar to that of Cape Town and Fremantle, so it should have a pleasant climate. Looking ahead, the passage from B.A. to Cape Town should be straightforward: sail ESE to pick up the route at latitude 41S or 42S. However, the timing of that passage will require some thinking. I've already been beat up by the Southern Ocean in winter, and I am not interested in repeating the experience. This suggests a stay in B.A. through at least November. I don't mind the long stay. In fact, I don't mind going to B.A. I have not visited any South American countries so far in this circumnavigation and now that the urgency of the Horn is behind me I am under no pressure to keep moving. It's called retirement. I'll have to see how things unfold but it seems to me that if I can put the boat in a secure place there will be ample opportunity for doing some serious bus touring.

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Day 97 - Bath and Change of Clothes

Shortly before dark the wind died to below sailing speed and we were left wallowing with the rolled up headsail and the trysail up and tightly sheeted. After dinner I went out and saw that the wind speed was down to 4 knots. I went to bed at midnight UTC with the alarm set for 0300. At 0300 the wind was still too calm so I reset the alarm for 0600 and went back to sleep.

At 0500 I woke up and saw that we had about 16 knots of wind. The wind strengthened even as I worked in the dark to get the boat moving. At 6 AM things had settled down and we were moving NE at 3.5 knots slightly beating against a 23 knot wind and rising sea.

The new wind was good but we must have lost 8 hours of sailing in this latest of what was beginning to appear to be a cycle of regular and frequent lulls of the wind.

And the trysail once again showed its advantage. To get the boat moving again all I had to do was to ease its weather sheet because it had been up during the becalming helping to steady the boat. With the wind in the low 20's it was now delivering all of the power that I dare put onto the rigging. Had it been the mainsail I would have had to first get some way with the headsail then gone on deck to untie it from the boom and free its halyard, and after that raise the sail with one hand while steering the boat into the wind with the other, all in the pitch black darkness. Call me a lazy sailor, but a lot of it has to do with risk minimization. The less activity on that deck the better, particularly in darkness or bad weather.

Within the hour the wind strengthened and began to gust up to 33 knots, forcing me to return to the cockpit and reduce headsail fast. Doing this is in a high wind must be done very carefully because if either the sheet or the furler line goes free the strain on the rigging and sail will be enormous. I begin the cycle by easing about a foot of sheet, just enough to make the sail start fretting a little. Then I use the winch to turn the headsail roller. I don't like using a winch on the roller, but in heavy wind I have no choice. I coordinate the cranks with lulls in the wind to ease the strain. I repeat this cycle until I'm satisfied with the amount sail still out.

The wind got even stronger, with one gust hitting 38 knots. This forced me to reduce the headsail to maybe 30 square feet. This reduced our speed to 2.2 knots. It all showed the challenge of these waters: not enough wind or much more than you can use. And back to the virtues of the trysail, I would have been very unhappy to see a 38 knot gust slam into the double reefed mainsail and I probably would have hove to immediately. The problem is that many of these events are unexpected and develop fast. They are not predicted by the grib files which are only snapshots at every 3 hours of what the computer model thinks will be happening. Even if the model is spot on, the grib file says nothing about the time between the snapshots. At least this wind was fair and we were headed NNE.

I woke up at 9 AM to find us headed north. Soon I had the boat moving more comfortably downwind, 30 degrees off the wind. I rolled out a bit of headsail which gave us a speed of 3.5 knots. There was scope for increasing sail later. For all my grumblings about the wind, at least they are predominately from the west. Back to the trysail issue, I'd be very leery of running downwind with the mainsail in this wind because I would expect the boat to constantly round up and overpower Jeff. And to risk a gybe would be unthinkable, meaning that I'd have to go on that deck and set up a preventer.

When I get back to Fremantle I'll get the spare mainsail out of the garage and put it up. Steve Hartley of Tasker Sails pronounced it a very good sail but couldn't guarantee that it would get me around the world, so I said 'Fine, you'd better make me a new one.' Out of that came the fancy stack pack with its lazy jacks and only two sets of reefing points in the sail. I'm pretty sure that I'm through with stack packs because of the problems that the lazy jacks present when raising the mainsail and the way in which they obscure the boom. The spare mainsail has the more traditional 3 reefing points and slides along the track of the boom, not loose footed as the stack pack version must be. I want a traditional clean system with no obscuring sail cover or lazy jacks bullshit. I'm quit happy to manually tie the dropped sail around the mast and put a traditional sail cover on it. I'll have the current mainsail refurbished and speak with Steve about putting slides along the foot and maybe even a third set of reefing point if it is practical.

I got a scare from the wind instrument: it stopped sending wind speed data to the chart plotter although it continued to send wind direction data. I figured that something had gone wrong with the rotating cups at the top of the mast but happily the wind speed data began to display again 10 minutes later. Very strange.

I visited the head to pump out my 2 liter ration of water for the day. The pump was almost back to normal in its ease of use. Somehow that olive oil with which I had liberally coated the stem must have worked its way through the seal and tube overnight. In future I'll make sure that I work both the head and the galley manual pumps regularly, giving them the olive oil treatment. Yes, I got by with 2 liters of water yesterday (and about 100 ml of pineapple juice left in the container) and had enough surplus for a second cup of coffee this morning. I cooked the spaghetti in a smaller pot and judged the amount of water beautifully, ending up with well cooked spaghetti and no surplus water in the pot. The only loss of water was as steam during the cooking process. Tonight it will be rice which is easier to judge.

Today has been the most temperate and pleasant day since before we descended below latitude 50S more than 40 days ago. The sun was shining brightly, the breeze was mild and relatively warm, and the cabin temperature was 66F.

At noon our position was 47S49, 48W40, giving us a n-n distance of only 40 miles in the direction 033T.

After the noon report I decided to take advantage of the warm conditions to have my first wash and change of clothes since Day 63, 29 December, when I put the Icebreaker wool tights on. I got out a fresh towel and under clothes that still had the pleasant scent that the Marina de La Paz laundry leaves on the clothes. I found a nice wool undergarment sweater that I had purchased in Opua, NZ. From another bag I dug out a pair of fresh thick alpine socks and track suit bottoms. The cockpit bath went better than I had expected. I pampered myself by using a top quality shampoo (Elvive by L'Oreal of Paris) that Brenda must have left on the boat. After drying off and getting dressed I felt great. While putting the dirty clothes into the laundry bag I thought of the magnificent job the Icebreakers had done in supporting me around the Horn. After they've been laundered I will carefully pack them in a plastic bag to await the next circumnavigation. (Yea, right!) Soon after I gave myself the second beard trim of the voyage.

Looking back, I must say that I was remarkably successful in keeping the clothes that I was wearing dry during the doubling of the Horn. I was always very meticulous about suiting up properly before going topside because I knew that one good splash of salt water would require a complete change of clothes. I was similarly successful with the bedding, particularly the blankets. No matter how tough the conditions were I always had a warm and dry place to sleep.

I've been seeing lots of birds in the last few days - hundreds. Yesterday I had a large group of small birds that seemed to be following the boat. It was a joy to see them in action: fast, agile, and able to alight on the water and take off with effortless east. With the help of Brenda's book on sea birds I think that I am correct in identifying them as diving petrels, such as the "Common Diving Petrel" and the "Magellan Diving" petrel. This afternoon they are back, accompanied by larger all-brown birds with white beaks that I would identify as "White Chinned" petrels. Such zest and carefree joy of living. Watching them would be good therapy for a troubled mind.

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Day 96 - Gas Cylinder Change

It was not a night for fast sailing. The wind was from the NNE in the low 20's and I didn't want to drive too hard against the rough sea, particularly in the pitch black night. We were now far enough away from the high latitudes to have normal nights.

In the morning the sky was clear, the sun was out, and the wind had backed. I rolled out more sail and at last we were making a modest amount of northing and a not-too-great but acceptable 3.3 knots.

I went to the head to pump out the first daily jug of water from the port tank and found the hand pump so stiff that I almost gave up the effort. I used a lot of olive oil to lubricate the plunger shaft and hopefully the pump will free up over time. The alternative is to switch on the water pressure pump, fill up the jug at the galley, then immediately switch off the pump again.

The wind stayed stronger than predicted and we sailed on a beam reach well into the afternoon. The sail and rigging seemed happy enough so I let the boat move at over 4 knots in an effort to make up for the recent slow going.

Before the noon report (which is a 3 PM local time) I decided to take advantage of the dry and not too rough conditions to remove the empty LPG gas cylinder from the lazarette and install the spare which I had been carrying from La Paz on the stern rail. I connected the cylinder up then brought it on line. As I was securing the cylinder with rope and shock cord my elbow hit the valve knob and gas came out. The gas was passing through the valve stem but when I turned the valve knob hard to the open position the leaking seemed to stop. I went back with a paint brush and soapy water and after trying very hard I did not see any gas bubbling out from either the cylinder valve or the hose connection. Like too many other things in this boat I'll have to wait and hope. Lack of gas would not be a show stopper but would certainly remove a lot of the comfort and pleasure of this cruise. I road tested the work by having my second hot drink of the day, a tall hot chocolate.

At noon our position was 48S23, 049W13, giving us a n-n distance of 67 miles in the direction 080T. The chart plotter was performing beautifully.

Late in the afternoon the wind died to 10 knots leaving us making 2.3 knots.

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Day 95 - Success with Chart Plotter

At nightfall there was a brilliant quarter+ moon and just to the right of it was our friend the comet, our companion for weeks now.

The evening's Sailmail brought good technical information from Arnold on the design of the Seatalk network. I ask his indulgence in my publishing his words which may be of help to others:

"The Seatalk bus consists of three wires that are connected to each device
on the net: 12V (red), GND (grey), and data (yellow).

The interface could not be more simple. A single wire (yellow) transmits
data between instruments. The wire is normally at 12V. When somebody talks,
the wire voltage bounces between 12V (binary 1) and GND (binary 0).
Technically, it's an open collector bus that is "pulled up" to 12V through
a resistor to indicate idle or 1, and is "pulled down" through a transistor
to indicate a 0.

I suggest you go to the Seatalk connectors in the comm closet and check the
following:

Red wires -- should be approximately 12V steady.

Grey wires -- should be 0V.

Yellow wires -- really need an oscilloscope for this. Check with the
multimeter anyway. If nobody is talking, it should be at 12V. If somebody
is taking it should be between 0V and 12V. After the DC check, change the
multimeter to AC function, low voltage. If somebody is talking I would
expect to see a small AC voltage.

The multimeter GND lead is connected to GND during measurements, of course.

If the red (12V) and grey (GND) wires look OK, I would try to disconnect
each device yellow (data) wire at the Seatalk junction box, one at a time,
to identify a bad device that may be corrupting the data bus."

Stephen sent me several messages containing the results of an internet search that he did for "Seatalk Failure" which were extremely useful and verified that I had been on the right track. (And a struggling amateur needs all of the validation that he can get!).

Several points stood out in my mind from this information: (1) ANY problem with a wire or connector can bring down the entire Seatalk network (2) I must heck that the autopilot black box is putting out 12V (3) Divide and conquer by isolating components from the Seatalk network.

With this information I went to bed determined to either fix or isolate the problem the next day, armed with a multimeter, wire cutting splicing equipment, fine sandpaper, the can of terminal cleaner, and lots of resolve. ("This ends NOW, Seatalk!") The ocean is a harsh environment for wiring and there was a good chance that corrosion had crept in somewhere.

The wind didn't even last the night. I was waken up by the heavy rolling of the boat, which meant insufficient wind and the headsail flogging back and forth. I got up and rolled it in and there we were, wallowing in the water. It was a a brilliantly clear night yet ahead of us on the horizon I could see regular flashes of lightning.

After 3 cups of coffee I began work on the Seatalk Problem.

I'll give the outcome up front so that anyone not interested in the technical details may skip "The Fix" section.

I would have to call it a total success with the chart plotter but a partial success with the system.

The chart plotter now displays position, heading, the COG/SOG data, the wind direction and speed, and the depth. So for the first time in weeks I am again able to monitor the boat at the nav station and no longer do I have to stick my head out through the companionway to look at the wind data.

The autopilot was the source of the problem and has been isolated from Seatalk. I will probably remove its 5A fuse to ensure that it is not energized.

To my surprise and disappointment the radar is still not functioning. It goes through the 60 second scanner warmup OK but when I give the TX command there is no rotation or imaging.

--------------- The Fix -----------------

I began the work with the principle that I need not investigate the wind & depth instruments or cabling because I had already isolated them with no result.

I probed the Seatalk network at the Raymarine junction box and got 9.8V on the red (R) and 0.73V on the yellow (Y). I switched on the multimeter to AC on low voltage as Arnold had suggested and got nothing on the red or yellow.

Going into the top of the junction box were two Seatalk cables: one from the autopilot (AP) and one from the front of the boat. The individual matching wires had been joined with solder and crimps. I withdrew the top wires from the junction box and found that the wires going into the lower end of the box were now dead. Going into the lower side were 3 Seatalk cables: one from the GPS at, one from the front of the boat, and one from the wind & depth instruments.

Of the two cables passing to the front of the boat, one had to go to the C120 and the other had to go to the depth transducer, though at this point I wasn't sure which was which.

I removed the 5A fuse from the AP and probed the fuse gap and got 12V.

I then did my first wire cuts: the R, Y, and G (ground) wires from the AP. I stripped the R and Y and probed to find 0.36V from the R.

I then cut and stripped the top wires going to the front and got a reading of 11.38V on the red. This had to be the C120 cable, and the source of power to the Seatalk network.

Leaving the three bottom sets in place (i.e. GPS, depth transducer, and wind & depth) I connected only the Seatalk wires from the C120 cable at the top, leaving out the AP wires. The chart plotter came alive, displaying everything.

I then decided to push my luck to see if reconnecting the AP wires would bring back its functionality and allow the C120 to once again see the flux gate compass and for the AP to work. It was worth a try because I had cut out several cable joins. I connected the AP cables and once again the chart plotter went dead. I withdrew the AP Y (data) wire and still the chart plotter was dead. Next I withdrew the R (power) wire and still the chart plotter was dead. Finally I withdrew G (ground) wire and the chart plotter came alive. Why the Seatalk ground cable of the AP causes a problem is beyond me. Perhaps something has gone wrong with the AP's power supply.

Back to the radar, I opened the access panel behind the C120 to make sure that I had not disturbed the radar cable when I looked into the area the previous day, but the plug is a heavy duty screw on type and solid as a rock. The area is so protected and dry (The cables are dusty.) that I saw no point in disturbing the connection. I had not run the radar since the hard passage around the Horn and it is possible that the heavy weather caused a problem up at the radome, or maybe even the cable running down the mast, though it is in its own conduit.

------------------- End of Fix Account ---------------------

So that has left me with full functionality of the C120 except for the heading, but no autopilot or radar. Most importantly, I have no reason for doubting that the AIS is working since it is a 3rd party product interfacing into the C120 via an NMEA 0183 interface and totally independent of Seatalk, which is working anyway. (I'll know when we encounter the next ship.)

I give my thanks to both Arnold and Stephen for their indispensable help in getting this vital system up and running again. Thanks fellows for your support.

As if on cue the wind began to get lively just as I had finished. Soon we were moving NE with a gentle wind and I went back below to put all of the tools and materials away. Within the hour it was drizzling and the wind had picked up to the mid 20's. I reduced sail and started the engine because the House bank was down to 12.0V.

The starboard water tank started making gurgling sounds as though it was about to go dry. I had been expecting it and I considered every day of water from that tank since the Horn a gift. The 140 liter starboard tank combined the water from La Paz and the rainwater that I had captured in the doldrums had supported me for 95 days. Now I had 140 liters of water in the port tank and 15 liters of La Paz water in reserve to get me Cape Town. I was fairly sure that I would be able to collect more rainwater once my mainsail was back up, but for now I had to assume the worst. I would reinstate the system of using the jug to hold myself to 2.5 liters of water a day, giving me 56 days at sea. Certainly the morale sustaining indulgence of all of the hot coffee and chocolate that I could drink which sustained me past the Horn would have to cease, since all that seemed to do was to push the fluids straight through me.

At noon our position was 48S34, 50W53, giving us a n-n distance of 69 miles in the direction 061T. In the last 3 days I had averaged a paltry 64 miles per day. At this rate it would take 50 days to make Cape Town. I needed to do better and I expected to.

I had been drizzling for hours and at one point I saw some serious looking clouds approaching. I dug out the spare shower curtain and spread it over the cockpit well in front of the binnacle to see if I could capture even a few liters of water. Unfortunately as all the other so-called rain since the doldrums it turned out to be more weak drizzle.

As darkness approached the sky began to clear and I was eagerly awaiting a predicted backing of the wind so that our course would alter more to the north than our current 100T.

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Day 94 - Modest Progress from Northerly Wind

There was a good strong wind overnight and we made reasonable progress. In the morning the wind veered and I had to put the boat into the wind, but not too hard because with the trysail we can't point too well. In any event I did not want to go hard to weather against the rough sea, This put us on a COG of W at about 3 knots.

This trysail is a mixed blessing. I woke up in the middle of the night with the wind unexpectedly up to 27 and 28 knots, which would have put too much load on the rig had the double reefed mainsail been up.

At mid morning we began to cross the edge of the continental shelf which is wide in this part of the continent and I noticed that there were many sea birds around.

Falklands Radio is fading fast. It is a medium wave service of 530 KHz with limited range. I enjoyed it while it lasted and am sorry to see it go.

At noon we were at position 49S04, 52W23, giving us a n-n distance of 66 miles in the direction 055T. In the past 24 hours the wind had gone from calm to too strong, generating rough seas from the north. It had been a relatively slow 2 days and Cape Town was a long 3200 miles away.

Two hours later the wind hit 30 and 31 knots, making it a Force 7 Near Gale. I rolled it most of the remaining headsail and we crept along at 3 knots taking a pounding from the regular breaking waves. It is difficult to baby the rigging and sails when nature will not cooperate.

By nightfall the high winds were finished and we were entering a period of 12 hours of steadily declining winds.

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Day 93 - Horn Doubled and Assessment

We had a rough night with the boat being pounded regularly by breaking waves. I set the chart plotter alarm for 3 AM local time but that failed to go off and of course it would fail because without GPS input the chart plotter does not know the time. (The C120 is called by Raymarine a "multifunction display" rather than a chart plotter, because it can display more than charts. At the moment the only service that I'm sure the C120 can provide is radar display.) I stuck my head through the hatch and saw a brilliantly clear sky full of stars. The wind was down to the mid 20's, but the sea was still rough. At the laptop chart plotter I saw that the boat had maintained its NW course and we were well above latitude 50S, meaning that we had formally doubled the Horn. This had no practical effect, but it meant that we had entered the roaring forties. At this point I was satisfied that we had rounded the Horn in all respects, in particular the dangers specific to the rounding, and that phase was behind us.

I woke up at 5.30 AM to a brilliant day, and with a falling wind over a falling sea it promised to be a day of heavy rolling and fretting sails. I dispelled the gloom of the latest gear failure of the C120 by thinking of the things that were still working. The rigging and sail survived the night with no apparent damage and the Monitor had done a brilliant job of steering. The spot forecast indicated no heavy winds for the next 3 days and after this day's lull of the wind I was hoping to get into a gentle routine of plodding our way to Cape Town.

Looking back on the impacts on the boat and crew during the doubling of the Horn, which took 27 days (Day 66/Jan 1 to Day 93/Jan 27) and I must say that we fared remarkably well. First of all, no really bad things happened: no rogue wave, no knockdown or rollover, no survival storm or "greybeard" waves. Discounting the torn headsail, broken inner forestay, broken Monitor control and trip lines, and autopilot problems, which either happened before the rounding or can be attributed to wear and tear rather than the passage round the Horn, the only tangible damage was the torn port D1 lower shroud and the loss of one empty fuel container. The life raft and Zodiac above it survived intact, as did most of the fuel containers on deck. Even the spray dodger survived without further serious damage: most of the rest of the starboard window was blown out and the port side retaining strap broke, but all of the canvas and the port window are intact and the dodger continues to provide valuable shelter to the companionway. I have to ascribe the good outcome to the benign season of the year, selection of the approach path to the Horn, and lots of good luck, particularly since I was not able to heave to properly.

I spent two hours looking into the chart plotter problem and got no result other than gaining more insight into the system. I removed the cover behind the C120 and saw that the connections being used are power, radar, Seatalk, and NMEA0183. Seatalk2 and DSM are not being used. The NMEA 0183 connection is for the non-Raymarine AIS transponder. Notably, there is no GPS input.

I then went into the communications closet behind the nav station and managed to open up a Raymarine junction box. Seatalk wires from the various Raymarine devices (3 wires per device) had been crimped together before connection to the junction box. There was no GPS input and then I realized that the Raymarine GPS antenna would have smarts in it to deliver its output via Seatalk, the same as the depth and wind devices. All of the corresponding Seatalk wires were spliced together, with the single Seatalk cable then going to the C120. I know from investigation that Arnold did earlier that Seatalk has a laughably simple structure and protocol, with no central control. So the question is why is the autopilot display reporting "Seatalk Failure" and the C120 not seeing any of the Seatalk devices? The only thing I can think of is that noise is getting into the system, either from a device or a bad connection. Regarding connections, they all looked OK to me and I jiggled them around while watching the C120 and got no success. I didn't go very far into isolating the autopilot from Seatalk largely because I didn't want to start cutting wires only to learn later that the problem was a simple one elsewhere. However, I did remove the fuse from the autopilot which should have made it dead in regard to the Seatalk network, and that got no result.

At noon we were at position 49S40, 53W48, making a n-n distance of 57 miles to 034T. We had been becalmed for 6 hours and were still waiting for wind.

With the impending light winds I thought that it was a good time to make the changeover to the mainsail. I dropped the trysail and stowed it in the cabin and fortunately I checked the main halyard up the mast before unfurling the mainsail. It was wrapped around the one step above the second crosstrees. I managed to free that but then noticed that there was a second wrap, between the first and second crosstrees, and it was behind a cord. I have a vague recollection of tying the loose end of that broken cord and I must have been too focused on the cord and not falling off that I didn't notice that I was trapping the main halyard behind a step. For now there was nothing to be done but put the trysail back up and wait for a quiet day so that I could go all the way to the top of the mast to sort things out. Until that calm and dry day came I would be sailing in a degraded mode. This step-cord business had caused me a lot of trouble and I must confess that it was self inflicted.

While all of this was going on fog began to roll in and the visibility dropped to less than half a mile. What had begun as a brilliant clear day had clouded up fast. Soon after the trysail was up and we were sailing to a feeble wind I began to hear a fog horn at about 5 seconds every 30 seconds. The sound was coming from ahead and it was getting louder. I was on the wrong tack anyway so I started the engine, tacked the boat, and began to move to the ENE. The horn still seemed to be getting closer so I turned on the radar. The radar went into standby mode OK but when I hit the command to transmit nothing happened. I remember being told that with modern radar all of the processing is done at the dome, so possibly the data was being passed to the C120 via the Seatalk protocol. It's a shame. I was planning to use the radar as a substitute for the AIS ship detection system. The only thing that the C120 may be useful now was for displaying AIS targets because the data is via the NMEA 0183 connection. To me this had exposed the big flaw of an integrated system.

OK, so I decided to hail the fog horn via VHF 16. "Fog horn at approximate position ... do you copy?" After 2 minutes of no response: "Fog horn approximately 185 miles NE of East Falklands, do you copy?" A minute later he responded. I explained that I was on a small yacht, gave my position, course and speed, then asked him if I would be OK. He said No Problem and that he was 3 miles away. I gave him my thanks.

By then a light wind had established itself and we were moving roughly NE at 2.5 knots and now that we were moving again I felt better, but I was determined to get the mast step problem solved as soon as possible.

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Day 92 - Chart Plotter Failure

We sailed all night with a steadily moderating wind. First thing in the morning I rolled out more sail to compensate for the 12 kt wind. The lull would last about six hours then the wind would build up again to a near gale.

I calculated that in the 6.4 days days in which we had sailed the 531 miles from the Horn we had averaged 83 miles a day. This included one slack day of very little progress and of course the challenge of getting around the Falklands. It increased my confidence in my assumption of 80 mile per day for the run to Cape Town, given that it would be a straighter run and I would be using the mainsail.

Not long after morning coffee I ventured to the foredeck for the first time in 2 days. All looked well. Both of the jury rig stays were still taut and the rest of the rigging looked OK. The headsail was still battling on with no obvious deterioration, and the fuel containers seemed secure. I started the engine early to get that out of the way before the wind strengthened. It looked like we would be becalmed for much of the following day and I hoped to seize that opportunity to do the bulk of the cord work on the mast steps and swap the large gas cylinders. Fortunately the cords at the top section of the mast were still intact, though I would still like to replace them with stronger cord. If I could replace the cords from the second crosstree down I would then be in a position to raise the mainsail.

I got up after a short nap, had a look at the situation outside, and decided to try to go up the mast and lay the mast step cord barrier from the first crosstree down. Even though the wind was at 17 kt and there was still a bit of a swell I thought that I could do it. It was the lower rungs that were almost totally unprotected and dealing with them would allow me to raise the mainsail if that became urgent. It was not an easy task. During the climb up the front of the mast facing aft and the actual work, the rolls were constantly pushing me hard sideways trying to spin me off the mast. This required clinging on hard, stiff as a board, during the rolls and trying to make progress between the rolls. I managed to do it and when I got back on the deck I was wringing wet with sweat. Down below I shed the foul weather gear and two sweaters in an effort to cool off. The thick and strong cord was perfect for the job. Had I used this in Fremantle when preparing the boat I have no doubt that it would have lasted throughout the entire circumnavigation. I would have to pick a very calm day for the work above the first crosstrees. This would require having no sail up the mast because at the first crosstree I must move to the other side of the mast to get past the radar dome.

At noon our position was 50S29, 54W37, representing a n-n distance of 92 miles in the direction 050T.

In the late afternoon the autopilot control at the binnacle began to audibly alarm and would not stop. Up to then it was always quietly displaying "Seatalk Failure" on its display. I powered down the C120 and threw the breakers and when I restarted the C120 was not plotting our position. For weeks it would lose touch with the GPS every 15 minutes or so but come back after a few seconds. This time it had gone hard.

I will rely on Dave's laptop software for navigation. In the computer is also C-Map. I also have two backup computers. I'll keep the C120 switched on in case it is still able to display AIS targets. However, without GPS input the C120 will not be able to calculate intercepts and warn me of danger. I will look into all this again on a calm day. I'll have to clear the port quarter berth area as well as the crossover between the quarter berths to enable me to trace the GPS and autopilot cables. I'd like to completely isolate the autopilot and ensure that the GPS cable is properly connected to the chart plotter.

At 7 PM local time we were sailing in a 30 knot wind. According the Falklands Radio the high winds were the result of a low passing toward the east, yet the sky was clear. Maybe we were in a squash zone. We kept sailing through it and held our course, making about 3 knots under the trysail and a greatly reduced headsail.

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