2007-06-08

Things always change. Wind started to come down late last night, and we
added sail to keep up the boat speed over 6 knots. On my late watch, around
4:00 AM, I kept hearing a loud clack from the rudder. Didn't want to spoil
my night vision, as there was just a hint of moonlight thru the cloud, so I
felt around the rudder head and found the linkage for the wind steering vane
was disconnected, and the linkage was too high to engage it. ODD!! felt
around the shaft for the rudder trim tab, and gave it a little pull,
whereupon it jumped straight up, disengaged the lower bushing, and the force
of the water flowing past broke it off at the waterline. No more windvane
steering until we get to Fiji. Sat there a bit more, then wondered more
about the linkage being high. Got a light, and could see a pin was gone,
and the rudder shaft was sliding up out of the gudgeons, already out of the
lower one. There's the clack! Not so good. Hove the boat to (stopped)so
no force on the rudder, and managed too work the shaft back down, and clamp
it. Then needed some centerboard down to get her sailing again.
Centerboard control line was jammed. Woke Karen in case things got worse,
then took the cap off the centerboard trunk. Fortunately it was pretty easy
to get the line free from where it had gotten caught next to the board. By
the time we got her moving again, all sail up, wind was down to about 5
knots, boatspeed about 2 to 3. It's been that way (or less) for 4 hours
now. We have a bit of a window between two systems, where we can get some
favorable wind if we can make about 80 or 90 miles today. Not gonna happen
sailing, so I just lit up the Suzuki. Also, no wind for th wind generator,
and not much sun for the solar panels, so I put the little Chinese generator
on the forward net and strung some wire into the boat for the battery
charger. We need about 40 amp hours a day to run the nav lights, autopilot,
and radio/email. We'll get about 1/3 of that from one hour of the
generator. So we're a motorboat with a generator for this morning. Not
perfect but better than the alternative. At least it's already noticably
warmer here, 150 miles north of Opua. So, all well on board, as long as the
autopilot keeps piloting! Ted