11 nautical miles
Up with mainsail and genoa and we started sailing. Yes... King Malu under sail again! She is a very well behaved if heavy boat. What with the fridge and freezer working it was wonderful to enjoy a glass of ice cold lemonade as we sailed.
We wanted to try to get the mizzen up, but could not because we need an extra halyard, since we had stolen the mizzen halyard for the gangplank. We tried removing the mizzen topping lift, but that was stuck firmly.
We tried the autopilot, but that went crazy taking us totally the wrong way. However, the main sheet system was brilliant, total control and very easy from the helm.
On the way back we passed the Zenobia dive boats. The wreck of the Zenobia is supposed to be one of the ten best dive sites in the world.
One of the boats was Alpha Divers, run by Chris, a friend of mine. I almost called him up on the radio, but we were having fun and he was working!
King Malu tacked nicely and so on the way back (I was skipper for the day) I decided to try a jibe. Yes, she jibed nicely too... a textbook jibe with the boat gently coming round rather than the boom bashing across.
The day started off with Tim and me clearing up King Malu so that when we sailed tools and other things would not fly around the cabin. Then when our crew arrived, Jacob, Louis and Sidney we got the sails ready, put on lifejackets and motored out. The motor was still getting hotter than we wanted, but it did the job.
We wanted to try to get the mizzen up, but could not because we need an extra halyard, since we had stolen the mizzen halyard for the gangplank. We tried removing the mizzen topping lift, but that was stuck firmly.We tried the autopilot, but that went crazy taking us totally the wrong way. However, the main sheet system was brilliant, total control and very easy from the helm.
One of the boats was Alpha Divers, run by Chris, a friend of mine. I almost called him up on the radio, but we were having fun and he was working!
So I positioned her right and did a final jibe and a broad reach back to the marina. The motor worked OK, but there was too much wind to reverse in, so we just put her bow to the dock. The afternoon we spent on pottering jobs.
OK, so I re-read the manual for the autopilot and in commissioning realised that the motor control was the wrong way round. Changed that and the autopilot went the right way. Costas from Raymarine came round and I found out that the reason we couldn't get the autopilot to steer to wind was that it was configured (dealer config which he changed) as a power boat not sail boat. And... the reason that we couldn't see wind and depth on the A70 was that the autopilot didn't repeat those values on the NMEA output. OK, so tomorrow we will calibrate the autopilot.
OK, so I re-read the manual for the autopilot and in commissioning realised that the motor control was the wrong way round. Changed that and the autopilot went the right way. Costas from Raymarine came round and I found out that the reason we couldn't get the autopilot to steer to wind was that it was configured (dealer config which he changed) as a power boat not sail boat. And... the reason that we couldn't see wind and depth on the A70 was that the autopilot didn't repeat those values on the NMEA output. OK, so tomorrow we will calibrate the autopilot.
All in all a wonderful day's sail.
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