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GREYHAWK's Sailing Adventures
June 2011
Pictures from the Bermuda 1-2 Leg One on GREYHAWK
Day 1, catching up to Class 2:
ADHARA and I sailed in sight of each other for much of the race:
So here we are running wing and wing before 20 to 25 knots of wind:
And here we are anchored off the St. Georges Dinghy and Sports Club in Bermuda:
My tiller pilot jury rig:
And from underneath:
Originally, where you see the bolt with nylock nut, I had used the tiller pin pointed down, and held the pilot pushrod's tip up on that pin with some ties. But the ties would loosed up and the pushrod would fall off the pin. So I used the vice grip to clamp the pushrod on. The plastic tip that hooks on to the tiller pin eventually sheared off, so I just clamped the pushrod itself directly to the tiller as seen here. Eventually the nut on the tillerpin worked loose and the whole thing came apart.
As designed, the tillerpilot pushrod is supposed to pivot on the tiller pin. With my clamping arrangement there was no pivoting between the tiller and the pushrod, which had two effects -- One, the clamped joint worked a lot and the vice-grips would occaisionally fall off and I would have to restart everything (get the pushrod centered again by pushing buttons on the AP control, clamp it up, and then reprogram the AP, all while the wind and waves are pushing the boat around, so I had to work quick to prevent a round up or worse). Two, some of the stress of the non-pivoting joint must have been taken up in the bearings of the tiller-pilot pushrod.
Also, the manufacturer's installation instructions specify that the you install the ram to be horizontal. Most tillers are pivoted to swing up, so if the pushrod isn't horizontal it has a tendency to push the tiller UP as well as off to the side. So I had this problem with my jury-rig system, so I ran a tight line over the top of the tiller to hold it down.
I have no complaints about the software or computer parts of the system, but when it comes to real boats on a real ocean, the mechanical bits seem to be nothing but a cheap toy.
Pictures from the Bermuda 1-2 Leg Two on GREYHAWK
Class 3 going through the Town Cut out of St. George's Harbor, Bermuda -- Photos by Patrick Paley (the snorkel guy):
All five Class 3 yachts heading into the Town Cut
Greyhawk trying to sneak past Beau Blue
and we are off!
Check out these tracks from the first night, when the wind went light. Note the dollar sign inscribed on the ocean by Aggressive. Greyhaawk just made a switchback (and some other wandering around), until we learned too late that having the autopilot in wind vane mode when there wasn't much wind probably wasn't such a hot idea!
It wasn't until the end of our last day that Wendy remembered that all her Facebook friends would want to see pictures from the race.
Telltales are flying! (Wendy is happy)
Tim just up from a nap!
Awww, what a nice family portrait!
Wendy's turn to have her picture taken.
You know what happens when you let a helium baloon go and it drifts away in the sky? It ends up out here in the Atlantic Ocean! We saw a ton of these out here.
Beginning of the End -- spinnaker launched as the sun set on our last day.
With the pole guy led to the forward primary winch (the foreguy in reach on the side of the house), and the spinnaker sheet led across the cockpit to the aft secondary winch, you could sit between the two winches, keep an eye on the luff curl and the wind instrument, and control just about all aspects of the sail.
The photo of Wendy trimming was taken with flash -- it wasn't quite that dark out yet; here's the sunset.
And finally, here is what the autopilot tiller connection is supposed to look like:
The new bracket is much beefier (3/8" vs. 1/4") and inspires a lot more confidence.