Damage to 2009 solo Transat boats PART 3

My biggest problems during the Ostar were electrical, however my first problem was that the cogs in the port side pit winch gave way before lands end, as i made the change to the #4 jib in 25knots of breeze, old cogs just sheered.

Having contacted Harken on my arrival home they instantly guessed which winch it was before I told them, so it’s a problem they have been dealing with. However this was not something that was visible on inspection, until it gave way and just by using a long handle and maning up we got round the probelm. 

 

The next real problem was sea talk, having been very happy with the pilot during the first part of the race and impressed at how it was coping it seemed fitting that this should be the next thing to break. It started with the speed instrument up by the 20/20’s which began to flicker on and off, finally it turned off completely. Not a problem but the entire sea talk network crashed and the boat instantly rounded up alarms going berserk.  I got the boat back on track and used string and the wheel lock to keep her on course, but it wasn’t fast, then I began to try and fix sea talk, I made an emergency call to will Sayer on Elmarleen as he knows Raymarine well, he suggested I look for breaks in the yellow sea talk wire, which I had already started. Going up wind in 25 knots with the spray hood and garage unscrewed and in the cockpit , all the headlining on the floor, was a frustrating few hours, but there was to be no sleep till it was fixed or I had some sort of solution. After about four hours it began to get dark, and I hastily re-wired the pilot without sea talk input using only one display, and with only heading data. This served but it was no where near as fast as wind angle,  that defiantly cost me, especially in the light, without the pilot playing the small shifts the boat simply stopped and I would go nowhere for an hour whilst I was asleep. 

 

When the boat got back to the Uk the problem proved to be water ingress into the main distribution pannel in the wiring box, the panel had shorted and taken down the network, short of a replacement there wasn’t any mending it. 

 

Originally when we got the boat it was charged straight from the alternator through a split charging diode and into the batteries. Not a problem, for the Ostar we upgraded the batteries from 2x 85 ah  to 2x 185ah I think it was a massive increase however I only required charging 2 hours in 24 which worked very well. To cope with this demand, we also fitted a Sterling boost charger, again a fantastic addition, that once working proved effective. However half way through the race and nicely mid Atlantic I found I was unable to charge the batteries at all, I checked all the terminals re did the fittings on the alternator and checked the boost system, all was ok. Finally I narrowed the problem down to the blocking diode in the split charging system, they had completely burned out, a quick rewire and they were removed, problem solved. Apart from angst and severally scaring my paranoid parents this only served to knackered me, so I cant really claim loss of performance. Having repaired the system I was happily running the engine, and I could smell a funny burning smell, I quickly shut down the engine and stuck my head into the compartment, the repair I had just made had slipped and was contacting the burned diode, the bolt I had used was red hot, and the wooded deck support was a bit blackened and charred but not compromised in any way. 

 

Damaged sails was another problem, by the time I reached Newfoundland I had a foot long gash just bellow the third reef, by the time the storm had gone threw, I had a three foot gash along and at least on and a half up, despite my best efforts with Kevlar tape , in the end I had to take the mainsail down three times and gaffa tape it into oblivion and that didn’t really work either but I think it helped. My biggest performance loss was when in a move to be a good seaman and be conservative I took the A2 chute down early when it was only 22 knots (playing it safe) as I was on the bow I started the usual take down procedure, unfortunately the halyard got caught on the jammers when the chute was a 3rd of the way down, at that point I couldn’t let go of what I had without sacrificing the chute, but also couldn’t reach the halyard, as I was deciding what to do, the foot caught the ocean, and it was game over. I did my best to repair it using 55m of gaffa, however shortly after having re hoisted it, it blew again in just 8 knots of breeze. If I had had the A2 in the last week It would have made a massive difference to light air boats peed, where the A5 was just to small and flat to be truly effective. 

 

I only had to climb the mast once, and that’s when a preventer I had rigged up, out of thin spectra became entangled in the #3 jib furling unit at the top of the mast, with a dropping breeze of 15 knots, I needed the 3 so up I went but I can only have cost me an hour at most.

 

I think that’s all I can say really, there were lots of other little breakages but nothing major, and if there was water ingress I didn’t notice due to the waves coming down the hatch, 2 sat phones soaked , one while I lay in my bunk!! Rubbish!! My sat phone connection to Pc was rather pants as well and it made connecting to Ugrib a really tedious task, as it would keep disconnecting unexpectedly.