Category: Latest News

The constant leakage of seawater requires nerves of steel. Always something new to learn in life.

When I woke up in the morning my cockpit plotter was not working. I had no GPS position in the network and the navigation had stopped. Step one was to check if the plotter was working. The plotter is ok, see photo. Next step was to find the bug. So I checked the fuses, switches, then sections of the cable. Following the cable I noticed water flowing into the bilge. The rudder bearing is still leaking, more than ever. All that effort, time and money in South Africa has been completely in vain. The bilge pump is saving my life. The plotter problem was caused by the water leak. The water had found its way into a junction of the cables leading to the cockpit. The cable joints had corroded. Eight hours later I had fixed the cable connections, all navigation electronics are working normally again. The electric bilge pump is running every hour. This will be my routine for the next months, until I can haul out Easy and get a proper repair of the rudder bearing back home.i

This is my social contact for the last three days.

Easy! Hoist the sails, engage the autopilot, let her run and done…. Well, it’s not quite like this, some hidden secrets remain.

The wind is different from all prediction models. The direction is 15° further north. This is uncomfortable for me. My twin headsail Passat configuration covers a wind angle of 135° true wind to both sides. Now the angle is 126°, and I can’t use one of the two sails which is the genoa, on the right side.

After 15 days I had my last vegetables, a nice, colourful salad. For the next two weeks I will eat pasta, canned food, trekking food and Müsli in the morning.

The contrast between nicht and day is striking. The weather is very constant during the day. At night on the other hand, things change all the time: Gusts up to 25 kn, no wind with 5 kn, blinking stars and thick clouds, nice gliding down the gentle waves and then rolling and pitching like crazy in chaotic waves from all directions. The blue line on the photo illustrates the changes of my course due to shifting winds at night.

I did not get enough sleep last night. Sqalls with changes in my heading up to 90° kept me busy.

Last night started pitch black. The clouds thinned out later and I had some magical sailing on the highway to the moon.

I am following the sun on his (no gendering here?) summer trip to the northern latitudes. It looks like the zenith angle is a bit higher every day as I am progressing northwards.