Ocean
Planet Vendée Globe Update: Ups and Downs
Thursday, December 9,
2004
Position 43 20S, 30 02E, @ 17:40 UT
It's
been a busy day (do I say that a lot?) here on
our southern ocean surfboard. The small high pressure
zone rolled over us late last night and this morning
giving us several hours of light air, but thankfully
not much slatting.
The
light air continued long enough today to allow
me to attend to various tasks. I slightly modified
and remounted the mainsheet bag in the vestibule
which the "big wave" from about a week
ago had ripped off. The vestibule dodger was also
repairable, aside from a couple of small rips
that do not matter too much. I sealed around the
backup autopilot control head which had been leaking,
and spent a lot of time messing with the autopilots.
The
primary pilot went haywire again, so my previous
fix which was hooking up the suspect control head
directly to the pilot servo (brain) instead of
going through the instrument server that is hook
to the pilot servo. That probably doesn't make
much sense to many of you, but the bottom line
is that it worked for several days but gave up
again. So I tried it with and without the suspect
control head and confirmed that it is indeed goofed
up. So, the primary pilot is working fine now,
and I have set it up slightly different with the
compasses hooked to it...but I won't bore you
with the details there!
Water
has been leaking into the aft compartment from
both the rudder deck bearing and the lower bearing
gasket boot. I did some sealing on the deck bearing
and hopefully that helped, but I will know more
after the next heavy weather dousing (coming tonight?).
The
toughest repair issue is the lower bearing boot
on the rudder shaft. Although my previous repair
seems to be holding fine, the boot has a couple
of other spots that have fatigued and have started
to leak. This boot has a tough job, as when we
are surfing fast air it tries to suck out the
lower bearing which is sealed by the boot. So
the boot gets sucked downwards towards the bearing
like it's being vacuum bagged. Then at lower speeds
the boot fills with water like a balloon and has
to keep it from coming in. This is worse at lower
speeds with the ballast tank full (upwind and
reaching) since the boat floats lower when "tanked
up."
Anyway,
today it was too wet from water leaking in to
use the neoprene glue, so for one of the bad spots
I made another patch of neoprene but glued it
on with a sealant that likes water better. In
order to hold this patch and another leak, I had
to wrap a lot of tape around the boot to hold
things in place. This will limit the movement
which won't matter in normal steering, but if
I tack or jibe I must be careful not to put the
rudder hard over. Every couple of hours I go and
check and miraculously the affair seems to be
holding for now. This is as good as I can get
until we can be in smooth water and going slow
so I can dry everything out and do a better job.
Yesterday
I did another interview with the Vendée
press center. They caught me right after I watched
the classic goofy movie (on DVD) of "Rock
& Roll High School" from 1979 with the
Ramones. The DVD and great rough rock of the Ramones
had me in a much better mood then from the night
before where I was frantic with worry about the
pilots, etc. So with my mood up, I rambled on
with long replies that must have had them wondering
if I'd opened my Cape Horn wine early.....;-)
I
need a nap now....I'm rambling on here too!
Bruce
Schwab, Skipper
USA 05/Ocean Planet
Web: www.bruceschwab.com
Education: www.oceanplanet.org
Email: bruce@bruceschwab.com
Phone: 843-670-6582
