Categories
Latest News

Sailing Past Mauritius

Mauritius is one of the places I skipped on my route. My priority is to stay at fewer places longer to get to know them better rather than to squash in every possible landfall in a rush. Mut zur Lücke.

Categories
Latest News

Dry Bulk / Ultra Cape

“Ore Shandong” is one of the largest dry bulk vessels. It is 360 m long, with a beam of 65 m, the draft is 23 m. The deadweight is 400 000 DWT, this is the measure how much a ship can carry. This ship loved Easy a lot and passed my bow at a distance of less than 1 nm. I had the right of way. I still have hope that one day there will be more translations of the COLREG (Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, Kollisionsverhütungsregeln) including Rule 18 (a). A power-driven vessel underway shall keep out of the way of: … (iv) a sailing vessel. In an ideal world there would even be a copy of the COLREGs on the bridge of every ship.

Categories
Latest News

Outboard Trouble

My first evening at the Rodrigues anchorage. I could not get to shore, the outboard stopped working after starting. My mistake, I had flooded the carburetor by pumping too much fuel through the line. Rather than rowing to shore I decided to dry out the carburetor and visit the island on the next day. Thank you for the nice photo, Anna from SV Vista.

Categories
Latest News

Land Ho!

After 16 days and nights at sea I arrive at Rodrigues. Happy, proud, excited.

Categories
Latest News

Critical Incident (2)

This is the broken genoa halyard. The reason why I nearly lost my new genoa. Last time I checked it for chafe was in New Zealand. Last time I had moved the halyard was in the Tuamotus. The halyard restrainer at the Nautor’s mast results in the chafe on the genoa halyard. I carry a spare genoa. I have a spare genoa halyard.

Categories
Latest News

Critical Incident (1)

After my morning shower I put some more tension on the genoa halyard, the luff was too loose. 1. I could not believe what I saw next. The genoa (54 sqm) was sliding down the track and was soon in the very clear and blue water. I disengaged the windvane and retrieved the tow propeller of the hydrogenerator. 2. The large genoa acted like a drogue anchor, several attempts to pull the sail on the foredeck failed. I then started the engine and tried to back up against the wind, no chance, the waves were too high, the sail was now under the port side of the bow, reaching to the front of the keel. 3. I tried to pull the sail out off the water with the second, spare genoa halyard: Yes, it came out off the water a bit, but no chance to pull the rest on deck. 4. Engine in reverse and when the sail was in front of the bow, then backing up further, this time with the bow to the wind. 5. Engine in neutral and rush back to the bow (tethered in all the time) pulling the sail head like crazy. Then, pulling little portions (10 cm) of the sail over the railing, sitting on the sail and holdin it firmly to the railing wires to stop it from sliding back in the sea. This took me like one hour, I was totally exhausted but managed to get the genoa on deck. Freed a part of the genoa from the anchor. 6. Engaged the engine to go downwind to have less apparent wind. 7. Hoisted the genoa with the help of my remote controlled deckhouse winch while feeding the flapping sail into the groove of the genoa track. It was an absolute nightmare, I was totally exhausted afterwards. Still, I was very lucky that the wind (14 kn) and the waves (2,5 m) were low. Else I would not have been able to save the genoa.

Categories
Latest News

Noch jemand Lust auf noch einen Sonnenuntergang?

Categories
Latest News

Lucky

Anna from SV Vista took this picture at Direction Island, Cocos Keeling, when Easy was still at the first anchorage in deep water.

Categories
Latest News

Critically Bad Welding Job

Suddenly, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, I lost my windvane self steering. With a “pling” the bolt that connects the steering line drum to the steering wheel had fallen off and was lying on the cockpit floor. I steered by hand and switched on the electrical autohelm. Then I had time to think and made a provisional repair with grey Dyneema line as you can see in the picture. Now I can’t disengage the windvane, I have to disconnect the steering lines completely to steer by hand. The reason for this failure is a faulty weld of the bolt. If you don’t have a redundant selfsteering system, a fault like this can lead to a very dangerous situation when sailing singlehanded. There is just no chance to steer by hand for the next 13 or so days, 24 hrs per day. The Swan 44 has a short bulb keel and a spade rudder. The advantage is the boat steers like a dinghy. The disadvantage is, even when trimmed really good, you have to steer her actively in the waves. I am not amused by the lack of quality of the welds of such a critical piece of equipment.

Categories
Latest News

My Goodbye-Dolphins

Leaving the lagoon of Cocos Keeling I was accompanied by this pod of curious, playful dolphins. I am not superstitious in the slightest. Watching them for a while made me really happy though. I take their appearance as a sign of luck. On my Instagram you find a video sequence of these dolphins: www.instagram.com/reel/CwZxzyGRZtq/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==