Category Archives: passages

Day 10 to the Marquesa. Still steering.

By B.J. | Published May 24, 2014

Autopilot Update Well, it wasn’t fixed and now we have a whole lot of weird going on. The Mystery Drive in the old Autopilot system has been identified as a Whitlock Mamba 24V drive, so that is good and thanks to my best friend Andrew for tracking down information for Read On..

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Reports of Resurrection are a Bit Premature

By B.J. | Published May 23, 2014

The autopilot worked beautifully for about three hours, then right before dinner it coughed up an error message and stopped working. “Clutch is Overloaded” or some such nonsense. It then refused to engage in any and all calibration and configuration exercises, telling me to Check your wiring. What I am Read On..

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Halfway There…WITH an Autopilot! (Day 9)

By B.J. | Published May 23, 2014

And there was much rejoicing Today at around 1230 ship’s time (1730 UTC) we passed 1,500 miles traveled. This means we are about half way to the Marquesas! It also means we have now exceeded out longest distance at sea in a single stretch and are extending that figure every Read On..

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The First Week – Day Eight to the Marquesas

By B.J. | Published May 22, 2014

Yup, we’ve been out here a whole week now. As of this typing (about 2100 ship’s time, 0300 UTC) we’ve travelled about 1,377 miles and are nearing the halfway point for the trip. Of course actual distance sailed will be a little more than the 2,975 Nautical Miles laid down Read On..

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The Benefits of a Broken Autopilot

By Kathy Woodruff | Published May 21, 2014

For several years I’ve been trying to get other family members to come post on the blog, I finally succeeded!  Give Kathy a warm welcome as a new blog author.   – B.J. Some might look at a broken autopilot as thousands of  miles of grueling hand steering and misery… but Read On..

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To the Marquesas – Day Seven

By B.J. | Published May 21, 2014

Today had a lot in common with yesterday. Great sailing conditions and good speed, a nice fresh Mahi Mahi for dinner, and the same songs spinning around again on the iPhone in the cockpit. This last we need to do something about. I’ve been introducing the kids to concepts like Read On..

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Day Six – Fish Mayhem

By B.J. | Published May 20, 2014

About Time First though, a word about Days and how we’re counting them. We left the Galápagos on May 15, 2014 at 1300 local time (1:00 P.M.) which is also 1900 UTC – 7:00 p.m. at Universal Coordinated Time, which used to be known as Greenwich Mean Time before the Read On..

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To the Marquesas, Day Five

By B.J. | Published May 19, 2014

Well there’s not a whole lot to add to today. The wind came back so we’ve been going faster, yesterday’s 163 mile day will hopefully be a thing of the past. Today I spoke with the manufacturer of our autopilot drive unit and the prognosis isn’t good. The hydraulic pump Read On..

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To the Marquesas Day Four

By B.J. | Published May 18, 2014

Nothing broke today! Whoo-hoo! Hand steering and the new watch schedule seem to be working out pretty well so far. We’ll see how we make out after a few days of it but everyone is grabbing sleep when they can and so far so good. In a few days it Read On..

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Day Three – So Much for Uneventful

By B.J. | Published May 17, 2014

Well the last twenty-four hours has proven an interesting course of events. The Bad News First In brief, last night around midnight just after I took over watch we lost the autopilot, it failed for what we think is good. It is tough to tell, we have an e-mail into Read On..

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