It’s Thursday afternoon and I am here in MD with Brenda visiting our son Rob, Kandice and grandaughter Tori for a few days.<\/p>\n
I have spent a good part of the morning tracking down some repair parts for Pandora including the pin for the autopilot that broke on the trip down from Beaufort. \u00a0I understand that this part, a pin that attaches the autopilot to the rudder post, has been a problem on Pandora since she was launched and that it has been replaced about every 18 months. \u00a0I won’t go into the details yet except that I think that I can modify the installation so that there will be less stress on that part going forward. \u00a0 In any event, I was able to purchase two spares from Raymarine so that’s off of my list for now.<\/p>\n
I also spoke to the folks from Quantum and they will be sending me some adhesive backed sailcloth to make a temporary repair to the rip in the main. \u00a0I’ll take it to their loft in Annapolis in the spring to have it repaired properly.<\/p>\n
Finally, I also need to replace the control lines on the traveler as they frayed. There is a particular spot where the line enters the traveler from the turning block that isn’t perfectly lined up with the entry to the traveler so it rubs. \u00a0With the rough conditions we encountered that certainly caused the lines to fray sooner than normal.<\/p>\n
It’s remarkable just how much wear and tear we ran into during the week we spent moving Pandora to the islands. \u00a0My friend Chris once told me that one year of living aboard causes as much wear and tear on a boat as ten years of weekend sailing. \u00a0I believe it. \u00a0 And, 1,200 miles in a week, half in a gale, is bound to stress things.<\/p>\n
If you have ever been in large seas, I expect that have tried to take videos to document the conditions. \u00a0 \u00a0A sort of “wow, you should have seen HOW BIG thes waves were” only to find, as I did that the shots just don’t do justice to what you experienced and have found yourself thinking “well, I guess you had to be there”.<\/p>\n
In any event, here’s a short video of Jerry at the helm as we blasted along in gale force winds. \u00a0Believe me, the waves were way over our heads but this video just doesn’t do justice the just how uncomfortable we were for the four days of strong winds and big seas. \u00a0 Actually, this wasn’t the worse of it as we didn’t even try to take shots when conditions were at their peak.