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Jan on NINJOD
With the pneumonia hopefully banished it was time to get NINJOD back home from Falmouth.
Jan and I grabbed a few provisions and left Pendennis Marina on Wednesday the 22nd of June at 0900 UTC. The forecast included showers and strong winds however the wind direction was favorable and would push us pretty much all the way home.
Having cleared Black Rock and got underway properly we set our asymmetric spinnaker. That sail stayed up for a few hours however as the wind steadily built towards 30 knots true we ended up sailing fairly deep downwind with just our mainsail up. This remained our sail configuration for most of the trip, we didn’t seem to need anything else.
The miles were eaten up as we sped along. The waves were pretty big at times and coupled with the wind speed, we spent a lot of time surfing. We seemed to constantly see speeds of between 12 to 14 knots.
Our top boat speed was 17.12 knots and the top wind speed we had was 33.7 knots true. We sailed 321 nautical miles and it took us 1 day, 18 hours and 18 minutes. We were both pretty pleased with that
I am sitting on a train on route back to Suffolk. By now NINJOD should be safely tucked up inside the inner marina at port pendennis. I have a bag full of pills and a dose of pneumonia. Everybody tells me I have got off lightly and that I am lucky. Yet, as I look at the AZAB website and see the other competitors adventures unfold, I can’t help but feel terribly unlucky.
Bob Orchard came onto the boat yesterday with his electrical wizardry and has hopefully gotten to the bottom of my power issues. The main relay switch for all instruments was at fault ( due in part to water ingress), there is also a question mark over the power terminals on an NMEA mux which I will now replace.
I really cannot stress how remarkable the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club and it’s members are. A special mention needs to go out to Neil and Julie who have both been super supportive in ferrying me back and forth between the doctors and the hospital during the last couple of days.
The doctors and consultants have told me to steer clear of boats for at least a few weeks while I heal. Ironically I was told they had found a “sail sign” on my chest x-ray. So, in a few weeks time it’ll be back down to Falmouth for a comfortable cruise home I hope, in the mean time…”WANTED..NEXT ADVENTURE”.
Paul
I managed to grab some video during my asym shenanigans before it all went wrong and thought I’d share it.
The makeshift halyard bags were a last addition minute addition that kept some of the water out of the boat (only some !!)..
In other news after visits to the doctors and hospital yesterday I have just had a call from the hospital. Turns out that they think I now have pneumonia and I have to go back to docs/hospital today.. Blast !
Another broken Selden car..
I called Joel at NKE this morning and spent 1o minutes taking him through everything. We reset a number of units on the bus and then scratched our heads some more as to why the system is tripping out and shutting down. Going to try and track down Mark Wylie next…
I have sent the picture above in another email to Selden. 4 cars down now.. What can I say? There is no way I could have stood at the mast, dropping the sail to replace this in those conditions without the aid of a pilot. If anyone has any thoughts please do comment. I am especially keen to hear from anyone who has these cars and has had issues.
Shower next and then the doctors..
It’s 00:30 and I am now just tied up in Falmouth. To demonstrate further the amazing commitment that the Royal Cornwall yacht club and it’s members have to this race I was greeted by a rib at black rock with Peter (the commodore) and Neil (our host) on board. Neil came on board and they led me in.
1st port of call tomorrow is a doctors then I will worry about the electronics.
Now for some sleep.
The code zero has just gone up as the wind direction suited it and the wind speed has dropped. Bit of a balancing act between a double reefed mainsail and the zero. 5 hours ish to Lizard point and then another 15 miles or so into Falmouth. Plan is to get some sleep, make some phone calls to NKE and take stock.
Jan sent me a list of all the well wishers, many thanks to you all.
P
Current Position:
49 35’01.32 N, 005 54’39.04 W
11-06-06 16:47:30 +0100 +0000
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.. nights last night. sat on cockpit floor all night waiting for electronics to fail again.. they did .. twice..Marco very kindly sent through some suggestions and have had a go with at all of them. Dropped switch panel out and cleaned all then earths, this seems to have made a difference, at least for the moment anyway.
I seem to have become ill. chest sore, coughing up green stuff , head that feels like Will is playing drums inside of it and very scratch throat. Going to try and get some sleep in a moment then dig out a can of soup and have a go at making myself feel better.
conditions are not too bad at the moment.18 knots true wind speed, sunny,boat speed around 6 knots, 67 miles to go to my way point of lizard.
Still finding lots of water in boat.Originally thought I had a ballast leak but havent carried any ballast on way home as when electronics fail it always ends up on wrong side of boat and causes me more grief. need to get to bottom of it..
Current Position:
49 16’07.46 N, 006 34’36.97 W
11-06-06 10:58:52 +0100 +0000
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just come off phone with falmouth . they asked me to keep them updated on my progress. so, electronics seem better, have tripped out once more.. nke always starts with error on true wind and true wind direction before the thing fails, perhaps the issue is aloft. anyway i cleaned all the terminals.
mainsail probelms all selden cars again..too windy to change now.. its a different car this time.. am able to sail with a heavily reefed sail…
very tired… long nighgt ahead…
p
I just had a call from Paul, who is currently contending with intermittent power failure. Unfortunately during the first failure all of the electronics, including the autopilot, went off and the boat crash gybed. This resulted in a broken mainsail and will probably ultimately result in his retirement from this race. The power continues to come and go, and seems to fail when under load, so Paul has switched to the back-up pilot, which uses less power but is struggling to cope with the seas. He is also quite concerned about getting any rest without being able to rely on a pilot. This is a major blow after so much preparation.
catastrophic instrument failure..everytghuing switched off. pilot ..the whole nke system. boat crash gybed and stuffed at least 1 batten car. nke bus keeps tripping out. have called mrcc falmouth, have turned around.. have major issues, no instruments, handheld backup gps…. raymarine pilot stuggling in these conditions.. 30 hours away.. so miserable
Current Position:
48 23’43.31 N, 008 40’33.55 W
11-06-05 19:51:32 +0100 +0000
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