capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Stacks of boats do.
Define Bluewater
- Thread starter FlyingGoose
- Start date
Stacks of boats do.
geem
Well-Known Member
Friends just sailed from Panama to Marquesas. Single autopilot on their catamaran. It failed and no back up. No wind self steering. Just husband and wife onboard. Two weeks hand steering! Both exhausted on arrival. Should have been a nice trip. A month at sea.
We have a complete spare autopilot onboard and a Windpilot. The autopilot is the third crew member. When hoisting sails, head to wind on autopilot using steer to wind and tick over just one example. When reducing canvas we take the boat off Windpilot to may be alter course a little in boisterous conditions to ease pressure on the sails. The autopilot is great. For us, short handed having a reliable autopilot and wind steering is a must. We have crossed the Atlantic without wind self steering before, being completely reliant on the autopilot. We did carry a spare however.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Only two weeks? Lightweights.
On our first Carib cruise, our autopilot broke by Tarifa in the Gib Straits. Never did fix it properly, not man enough for the job.
When we got back 10 months of cruising later, we fitted a Hydrovane! Next circuit was easy.
It isnt easy hand steering for extended periods though, as you say. But Ive taken a few yachts on long trips without back ups and there is always that little 'tingle of anticipation' lurking.....
On our first Carib cruise, our autopilot broke by Tarifa in the Gib Straits. Never did fix it properly, not man enough for the job.
When we got back 10 months of cruising later, we fitted a Hydrovane! Next circuit was easy.
It isnt easy hand steering for extended periods though, as you say. But Ive taken a few yachts on long trips without back ups and there is always that little 'tingle of anticipation' lurking.....
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
Worked on a coaster ,steering by hand for year,learn not to oversteer,three on three off
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Top of my list for my 11m AWB to go blue water (which I have no intention of doing beyond Iberia-Canaries in this boat) would be a beefed up rudder. At least solidly rebuilt & crevice corrosion-free version, though preferably with skeg protection faired into the hull to preserve some sort of stump when the worst happens.
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Frank Holden
Well-Known Member
Best 'budget' radio for wefax at present is the Tecsun 880....
An interesting site that gives info on the present status of wefax transmissions around the world can be found here... https://goughlui.com/2019/01/28/radiofax-gya-northwood-united-kingdom/
Scroll down to see other stations..
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Frank Holden
Well-Known Member
Yes I also have a bilge alarm... but when it goes off you first have to figure out where the water is coming from then there is the issue of getting to the calorifier... which is at the bottom of the well packed 'garden shed'... not any easy thing to do in the dark in a seaway.....
200 litres can escape a lot faster than I can get to the calorifier....
Garbage? We carry fruit juice in 1.5 or 2 litre plastic bottles.... when one of them is empty it is used to stow all other plastic waste that we generate - yes a plastic free world would be wonderful but in the meantime -.
Some needs to be cut to size... eg uht milk cartons... but it all fits in and when well tamped down with a chopstick we can get over a week's worth of waste into one bottle.
Pong free and when declared as 'quarantine garbage' - it normally contains vacuum packed meat wrappings - on arrival the nice lady often congratulates us on not handing over a stinking bag of rotting waste as she takes it away for incineration.
steve yates
Well-Known Member
I know they do, but I wouldn't. Just seems like asking for trouble.
BobnLesley
Well-Known Member
I once raised exactly the same objection: When preparing for our first ocean crossing in the Canary Islands I not only found jerry-jugs to be very expensive there, but came to realise that my plan of 'giving them to the locals' when we arrived wasn't up to much either; with the so many other yachts heading there with jerry-jug lined decks, they didn't need any more from me.
Around the same time we met an experienced trans-At sailor who advised: "I always head out with 8 x 12-bottle cases of 1.5 litre water bottles, they'll cost you less than half-a-dozen jerry-jugs and with the two tanks built into the boat, that gives me 98 independent water tanks." My response like yourself was to 'like' the idea, save for the plastic waste that it generated, but I suspect that like me, you perhaps haven't really considered how small that 'big drawback' actually is?
When I raised it, the chap gave me an answer:
When loading your 96 water bottles aboard, be sure also to stow a pair of scissors and one typical supermarket carrier bag, after using/emptying each bottle, slice it up with the scissors - you need something to help pass the time on a boring trans-At anyway - and drop the resulting 1" x 2-3" strips of plastic along with the bottle-caps into your Sainsbury's bag - A Tesco's one will probably work equally. I promise you, having actually checked this out one idle day in the San Blas Islands - if you want to see/learn about plastic waste, then San Blas is the place visit - that when you've deposited all 96 bottles into that bag, there will still be enough room for a good few more; the plastic content of just four or five 20-litre jerry jugs would probably be way more.
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BobnLesley
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't go quite that far, but we certainly consider the wind vane to be more 'vital' on ocean passages than a working engine and probably each other too; Lesley'd toss me overboard to lighten-ship long before letting The Lizard go.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Its a risk. Having been bitten on my own boat, Ive taken precautions. But when Im delivering other peoples I dont have a choice other than dont deliver other peoples yachts.
Belt driven pilots are the most likely problems. Stitching a worn belt back together is no fun......
And hard yakka steering for days. You are right to take action to avoid it. I wouldnt call not doing that asking for trouble though, but a slight risk. added to all the other slight risks.....
lw395
Well-Known Member
You don't rely solely on an autopilot.
When they break you steer by hand.
It's not really that big an issue if you've got a crew of three or more.
Most boats you can set up well enough that you can lock the wheel to put the kettle on or whatever.
zoidberg
Well-Known Member
A fellow turned up at the Tamar River SC pontoon ' 'Jester Village' - intending to participate in the Jester Azores Challenge. He'd sailed from Belgium, hand-steering all the way as his home-built windvane self-steering gear simply didn't, and he had extensive open wounds on both palms. That required a week of medical attention....
Some Jestery types showed him several effective techniques of 'sheet-to-tiller' steering, and he later set off happily solo for the Azores. Last I heard he'd crossed the Caribbean Basin and the Panama Canal, heading further SW.
Perhaps there's some 'knowhow' there which correspondents could usefully hoist in.....
Some Jestery types showed him several effective techniques of 'sheet-to-tiller' steering, and he later set off happily solo for the Azores. Last I heard he'd crossed the Caribbean Basin and the Panama Canal, heading further SW.
Perhaps there's some 'knowhow' there which correspondents could usefully hoist in.....
geem
Well-Known Member
We have had the same four fuel cans and the same two water containers since 2005. We dont buy plastic to then throw it away.
FlyingGoose
Well-Known Member
+1 the way to go I think and invest in A Good water maker
It seems there are a lot of Auto pilot breakdowns , is this the opinion on here that they were not up to the job. not serviced , old and in need of upgrading.
I have recently installed a linear Drive but upgraded the ram for higher loads , although burns more DC and fitting it wasa pain do these realy fail or is it the elctronics Raymarine type 2 with 2 P70 controls , but the Ram I outsourced away from Raymarine
AndrewB
Well-Known Member
This thread is all about KIT KIT KIT!
However did we do it in the bad old days? No satphone no watermaker no GPS no autopilot no fridge no generator no AIS. Only a decent well-found boat. Well, of course we were just foolhardy.
However did we do it in the bad old days? No satphone no watermaker no GPS no autopilot no fridge no generator no AIS. Only a decent well-found boat. Well, of course we were just foolhardy.
geem
Well-Known Member
Thats how I started sailing. We had a Seafix RDF, a depth sounder that span around, no vhf.
The engine was a Stuart Turner inboard petrol job. Totally unreliable!
We used to sail from North Wales to IOM, Southern Ireland and Scotland. Forecasts were poor but we survived.
Who would want to go back to that? The crap engine did teach you how to sail on and off the anchor or mooring something we still do regularly.
Kukri
Well-Known Member
You had a Seafix! And an echo sounder? You were gadget obsessed. I dare say you didn’t even have deck leaks...
Ex RAF grid compass, ex RN hand bearing compass, lead and line, sticky PVC oilskins, kapok life jackets, Number One Manila halyards and sheets... no nav lights cos they didn’t work but a torch to wave at steamers and read the compass with... oh, and damp cotton sleeping bags...
Ex RAF grid compass, ex RN hand bearing compass, lead and line, sticky PVC oilskins, kapok life jackets, Number One Manila halyards and sheets... no nav lights cos they didn’t work but a torch to wave at steamers and read the compass with... oh, and damp cotton sleeping bags...
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lw395
Well-Known Member
A good boat is a start, but the crew are also a big factor in whether it breaks or not, and whether it gets fixed.
Kukri
Well-Known Member
I’m surrounded by stuff that I can’t fix. Radar, AIS, VHF, chart plotter to name but four.
