LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 59:
Saturday, July 08, 2000
Underway in the Gulf of Maine: Bound for Cape Breton Island, NS
0045 The wind goes flat. I stow the jib and the poles and I fire up the engine.
0145 The autopilot gives another rudder response failure alarm.
0153 Three more "rudder response failures" all in rapid succession.
0254 Another rudder response failure. I shut the autopilot down and restart it. The wind is light and variable. The boat is rolling and pitching gently.
0357 The horizon is brightening to the east and there is enough ambient light to secure the red lights in the cabin.
0501 Sunrise
0600 I review the weather faxes that have come in over night. The readability of the faxes has been generally poor over the last 36 hours. There is a slight improvement in the stuff that came in during the night, however. It appears there is a gale several hundred miles to the SE of Nova Scotia. It is not likely to become a factor for Lord's Prayer.
0720 The wind has freshened N 10-11 kts. I make sail and secure the engine. The boat is on a broad port reach making 4.5 kts on a heading of 111 T. Next turn point is 70 NM ahead. The sky is overcast. Air temperature is: 56. Seawater temperature is: 59.
0729 Another rudder response failure. The autopilot accepts a reset.
0746 Another rudder response failure. I shut the autopilot down and restart it. On startup it gives me a communication failure signal. This is something I have not seen before. I acknowledge the failure by pressing standby. I reset the auto pilot.
0748 Another rudder response failure. I reset it. I am really disappointed that we were not able to solve this autopilot problem with everything that we have tried since April. I think the only thing left to do now is probably to ship the entire autopilot, along with its electronic components and the rudder angle feedback unit, back to Simrad in California so that they can give it a complete test and repair. There is clearly a faulty component here. But I have no way of determining what that might be and apparently neither does the average marine electronics shop. I shall make the best of it with the autopilot in its current condition for the next 2 months, as removal and reinstallation are major tasks. I expect that sending it out for repair will consume a good 6 weeks and I do not intend for the boat to stop moving for a long enough period to do that kind of work until late September.
0815 Another rudder response failure. I transfer steering to the Monitor Windvane so that I can get some rest and I shut down the power to the autopilot.
1200 Lunch: salmon sandwich & cider
1300 I read from Farley Mowat's book "The New Founde Land".
1500 The wind has backed to NW 10 kts. I rig the dual jib on the poles and stow the mainsail. Boat speed is 4.6 kts. The sky has cleared and the air has warmed to 64 degrees. With the wind coming from astern, the breeze in the cockpit is light and that makes it very comfortable to sit there.
1720 A heavily laden tanker passes a half NM to port headed in a westerly direction. A school of dolphins or small whales is sighted about a quarter NM north. They are too far away for me to identify them. The sky once again is overcast. The wind has backed to W 10 kts. On the current heading the wind is just aft of the starboard quarter.
1815 Dinner: home made macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, broccoli, and I finish off the apple cider.
1943 The wind is W 10-13 kts. Boat speed through the water is 5.5 kts. GPS speed is 7 kts. I am experiencing a favorable current caused by the ebb flow from the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf of Maine, Massachusetts Bay, and Cape Cod Bay. The ebb will continue to speed me along until the water goes slack at about 2300. After that the flood current will slow my progress for a period of about 6 hours. The flood current is expected to be slightly stronger than the ebb.
2007 Sunset
2100 Position: 43 00.108N 66 34.568W. The following list of Waypoints (WPs) define my planned route from here to Saint Peters on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia:
WP6 42 54.33N 65 25.48W, WP7 44 11.88N 62 11.10W, WP8 45 06.35N 60 49.81W, WP9
 45 21.35N 60 47.95W, WP10 45 33.19N 60 50.86W, WP11 45 36.01N 60 52.84W, WP12 4
5 37.12N 60 53.36W, WP13 45 37.33N 60 53.25W, WP14 45 37.56N 60 53.23W, WP15 45
38.00N 60 52.68W, WP16 45 38.95N 60 52.71W, WP17 45 39.08N 60 52.21W.
There are a few more turn points in this route than absolutely necessary. I hope to thread my way through the areas of deepest water to avoid the shallower fishing banks and the slope water areas, where I would be most likely to encounter fishing boats and/or their fields of buoys with radar reflectors atop short masts. If successful in this endeavor, I expect to minimize the frequency of guard-zone alerts
from the radar and thereby maximize my own rest.
END OF PART 59


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