Living & Learning Aboard the Good Ship Learnativity

Rudder?! We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rudder!!

As you may recall from reading the daily LTY updates on the passage up from Fiji to here in the Marshall Islands, our rudder shaft sheared off just below the flange where the 2.5" SS rudder shaft bolts onto the flange connecting it to the shaft going up through the hull where it attaches to the lever arms that the hydraulic cylinders push and pull against. The good news is that we did not donate the rudder to Davey Jone's Parts Department at the bottom of the sea due to the way the skeg hung rudder on Learnativity is set up it is captured within this top flange and the similar one on the bottom where it attaches to a short shaft set in a bushing in the skeg. The bad news was that we had no way to turn the rudder and therefore no steering!

Not being ones to let such trivial things bother us much, Christine and I set about figuring out a way to solve this latest challenge and get back to sailing the remaining 250 or so nautical miles to Majuro. I'll post more pictures and details on the LTY blog in the next few days but Christine has covered this in her typically articulate and concise fashion and posted this along with a link to the video I shot on our GoPro camera just we got the method we came up with of lassoing the anchor with lines off the trailing edge of the rudder and led up either side of the hull. So you can read her well written version and watch the YouTube video on her Write On The Water posting here http://writeonthewater.com/?p=14149

WARNING!! Video may cause sea sickness, view at your own risk!!

Otherwise we are busy both enjoying our new location on the mooring ball just off the Uliga dock at the far eastern end of the inner harbour of Majuro Atoll, checking out the stores, picking up over 30 boxes of boat stuff that we've had sent to the US Post Office here and starting to catch up to the big backlog of online tasks. Christine is hard at work on her part in putting together the big Sleuth Fest conference in Orlando at the end of Feb for mystery/thriller writers like herself and prepping for her next novel which will be the third in the series that began with "Circle of Bones" and will soon be followed with her newest novel that will be out in March called "Dragon's Triangle". I'm busy making arrangements for fixing our rudder and lots of other boat jobs, unpacking all those boxes and starting to install all those new bits of equipment and repairs and basking in the glow of this most awemazing life and love I am immersed within. Ruby the Wonderdog is a bit miffed that she doesn't get any "shore leave" for the next while but otherwise is enjoying being spoiled by Christine on a regular basis and now also with visits and perhaps some sleep overs with Philip & Teri on Blue Bie.

Oh, and thanks to Christine and my dear friends Philip and Teri on Blue Bie I had an absolutely fabulous birthday on Thursday and started my 62nd circumnavigation of the sun. That combined with all the online greetings, cards and messages I received served to remind me yet again just what a charmed life I lead and how truly rich I am. Thanks and let me just say that life, love and learning are just getting started after you turn 60!!!

So all is VERY well aboard the Good Ship Learnativity and all of her crew wishes you well and hope you have your 2014 off to a similarly spectacular start of 2014.

Christine, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

and now, for something completely different and well writen......

Thanks to one and all for your kind comments, loving support and concerns on our most recent adventures in life, love and learning aboard the Good Ship Learnativity. In spite of many attempts to thwart us doing so, Christine, Ruby and I sailed right up to our mooring ball here on the far east inside coast of the Majuro atoll lagoon on Friday evening as if we were on a wire.

Losing the use of sails, transmission, rudder and rigging only served to make us stronger and more in love and we had a blast the entire time. Any doubt and tentativeness either of us might have had about our future as a loving couple when we left Fiji vanished in the experiences of living, loving and learning together on this most recent awemazing adventure and we tied up to our mooring ball glowing with giant grins on our faces as we kissed and embraced each other on the foredeck. So yes, all is VERY well on the good ship Lovativity! ;)

And if you'd like to see things from Christine's perspective AND for a change read accounts from someone who knows how to write VERY well, be sure to check out Christine's regular weekly posts on the WriteOnTheWater.com site. Her most recent post just after we came ashore here in Majuro is here http://writeonthewater.com/?p=14102

We've been enjoying a VERY still and quiet boat almost as much as Ruby is, cleaning up, sleeping, getting laundry done, getting back on the internet and enjoying introducing Christine to what has become a bit of a "home port" for Learnativity, Ruby and I since first coming here back in 2010.

I will start updating the blog posting with pictures and video over the next week so you can get a better sense of the joys we experience aboard and on passage and you will see these as updates on our LTY blog at http://learnativity.typepad.com and on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

I will also update you from time to time on our activities now that we are here in Majuro for the next month before we fly out mid February to look after speaking engagements, book research and time with friends and family in the US, Canada and Europe.

Thanks again for joining us on this latest adventure. It is all the more exciting for us knowing that you are right there sailing through this awemazing life with us. Hang on, we've only just begun!

Christine, Wayne & Ruby the WonderDog

LTY FINAL UPDATE: Day #20 Jan 17, 2014

LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma

Day #20
Friday, January 17th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)

LTY time: 21:20 Fri Jan 17th (LTY time = UTC +12 with NO DST here in Majuro now)
Location: on our mooring ball, east end of Majuro atoll
Position: 07 6.513 N, 171 22.064 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: ZERO! We’re stopped! hove to (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: Zero (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 5-15 kts ENE Apparent Marshall Islands trade winds
Seas/Swell: NONE! Inside the sanctuary of Majuro atoll
Weather: VERY stormy morning that turned into equally as calm afternoon for our trip through the pass
Air temp: 84.2F 29C
Sea temp: 85.6 F 29.8 C
Barometer: 1015
Total Distance travelled: 1803nm

WE MADE IT!

20 days and 1803 nautical miles after leaving Fiji, we tied up to our mooring ball here in the Majuro RMI (Republic of Marshall Islands) at just before 6pm tonight. As you’d know from reading our daily blog postings, it was an incredible adventure and Christine and I can’t stop smiling since we tied onto the mooring ball and this adventure ended and the next one begins.

It was yet another spectacular day for us, another day packed with a density of experiences that is hard to describe. As per this morning’s update we had spent the night “hove to” (sailor speak for stopping the boat in the middle of the ocean such that you only drift very slowly) off the SW corner of Majuro and got a good night’s rest before our last day of rounding the west end of Majuro atoll and making our way through the pass to the inside. So after a good night’s sleep we were up before first light to start the last leg of this passage around the west end of Majuro atoll and through the pass into the calm safety of the protected lagoon within Marrero atoll. We enjoyed our breakfast being rolled from side to side in the high seas and wind that is typical of this time of year up here and then hoisted the jib and were soon off and sailing NW at a very good clip. In short order though this turned into a full on storm and we found ourselves in winds up to 50+ kts and wind waves standing up straight and tall up to 3 meters. Learnativity handles all this with ease but with no rudder the best we could do was to set the sales to balance out the forces and this meant we were now headed NW away from Majuro. We let this continue till we were far enough north of the NW corner of the atoll to be able to tack over and start sailing back to make up the 15nm we had been pushed west. Of course just as we did so the storm winds and rain intensified even more and shifted so we were now headed straight south! There wasn’t much else we could do so we rode out the intensity of the storm and then were finally able to start sailing more of a SE angle back towards Majuro and make back some of our lost nautical miles. The wind dropped off a bit but continued to change direction as the storm swirled through us and so we finally furled up the jib and fired up the motor and started to figure out how to steer LTY with the MacGyver setup of ropes we’d set up on aft end of the broken rudder.

After some experimentation we were able to come up with a system that worked amazingly well. I had lashed the ends of the lines I’d wrapped around the top and bottom of the rudder such that the ends came off the very aft edge of the rudder and then we led them up the side of the hull and tied them off on the aft corner of the deck with the top set tied to the radar/wind generator poles and the other bottom set of lines secured to the aft most set of deck cleats. I was able to pull these up tight such that the rudder was centered and there was just a little bit of play in the lines going down to the rudder that would let the rudder move about 1” or less from side to side. From up on deck we could pull on these lines and just a very small amount of movement of one line, only about 1cm, would have a significant effect on the direction of the boat as the rudder moved.

We spent an hour or so experimenting with pulling on these lines until we found the position where the boat sailed straight and then lashed them off. Now what we were able to do is station one of us sitting on the very aft corner deck where we had these lines tied off to and we could grab one of the loops of line and pull with all our might to get it to come in about 1cm or less and this would move the rudder just enough to cause the boat to turn in that direction. Then we’d release that line and the boat would stop turning and settle back into going straight on that point of sail. Perfect! And so that’s how we sailed for rest of the day with one of us at the helm and the other sitting on the aft corner pulling whichever line we were told to “pull starboard on”, “OK, release starboard” and we were off at a good pace of up to 7 knots at times and most importantly on a direct course to the waypoint we had set just outside the entrance to the pass into Majuro. We made up the 15nm we had “lost” to the storm by being pushed west, in record time as the weather improved dramatically with each passing mile.

We arrived at the waypoint outside the pass into Majuro about 3:30 this afternoon where we were supposed to meet Cary in his power boat “Wasabi” to help tow/steer us through the pass into the atoll. We beat him there and the seas were eerily calm and oil smooth, the skies were turning blue and the wind had dropped off to next to nothing. So we decided to go for it as our steering teamwork setup was working so well and weather conditions were just right. It all worked like a charm with Christine expertly in command at the helm and me pulling on the lines on whichever side she asked for;

“I need some Port”…….
“ready” ……………
“Pull” ………………..
“Pulling now” …………………………
“Release” …………………
“Released”

and LTY would move over to port and then settle back into going straight ahead on this new course. Sheesh! Who needs a rudder???

We made it through the smooth wide pass with no problem, turned left once inside and then continued to pull the rudder lines as needed to maintain the almost straight line course east down the middle of the atoll towards the RRE mooring ball field where our mooring ball was waiting. We met our friend Cary on Wasabi about halfway inside the atoll and he needed to head off to a Skipper’s meeting for the weekend race but said that someone would meet us near the mooring field. So we had this mesmerizing ride on oil smooth waters all the way down the 10nm run to the far east end. We had prepped the dinghy to launch it just before we got to the mooring field but as we slowed to do so two other cruisers, Larry and Joel came out to meet us in their dinghy’s and they grabbed our bow lines as we glided to a stop right at the mooring ball. They threaded our lines through the loop of line attached to the mooring ball and we were now firmly attached and stopped. Our floating home was stopped and home her in Majuro for the next few months!

We enjoyed a few moments of the great satisfaction that comes from the shared experience of overcoming adversity and turning it all into a grand adventure and then had some much needed showers on the aft deck of an oddly still and flat Learnativity. All cleaned up and with some fresh clothes on we splashed our dinghy and headed ashore for a Friday night out for dinner at the “Tide Table” restaurant which is right beside the dinghy dock.

And so here we sit, after a delicious dinner, sitting side by side with our laptops connected for the first time in three weeks and continuing to enjoy the glow that comes from such a shared experience. Christine has been truly awemazing in her abilities with every task there is onboard during a passage, her calm purposeful demeanor and always positive attitude and killer smile. Somehow with almost no prior discussion we both fell into our roles as if we had been a team all our lives, we dissected problems as they came up, agreed on the best solution and executed on them with no fuss and no stress. It was a thing of beauty for both of us to behold.

In few minutes we will finish up our downloads of almost a month of unanswered Emails and head back to our dinghy to make the short ride back out to Learnativity and a waiting Ruby and then we will enjoy a VERY peaceful sleep on a very calm and quiet Learnativity.

We will post a few updates as the next days and weeks go by and we settle into the next adventure of exploring Majuro and getting to our various jobs boat and otherwise. We both want to thank you for following along and joining us vicariously on this latest adventure. Hope you enjoyed it almost as much as we did and we’ll see you again on our next grand adventure in living, loving and learning on the good ship Learnativity.

Christine, Wayne & Ruby

LTY morning UPDATE: Day #20 Jan 17, 2014

LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma

Day #20
Friday, January 17th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)

LTY time: 06:40 Fri Jan 17th (LTY time = UTC +12 with NO DST here in Majuro now)
Location: about 11nm off SW corner of Majuro atoll
Position: 07 12.897 N, 170 50.736 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 1.2kts hove to (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 333 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 20-28 kts ENE Apparent
Seas/Swell: 2.0m @ 6 sec out of NE
Weather: Patchy clouds in otherwise clear sky. Steady NE trade winds 20-28 kts
Air temp: 84.2F 29C
Sea temp: 85.6 F 29.8 C
Barometer: 1015
Distance travelled: 1428nm
Distance to Majuro anchorage: 22nm

READY & RESTED for FINAL LEG

We sailed into the lee of the SW corner of Majuro atoll just as the sun was starting to set and gave us a great view of our first sighting of land for over two weeks. Exciting and sad all at the same time as this passage nears its end and we make the transition from one great adventure to the next.

We decide to heave to, which means to put the boat in a state where the combination of sail, rudder, keel all cancel each other out in the winds and the boat stays pretty much put where it is. In our case with the strong NE trades we were as close to stationary as we could get driving at about 1 knot to the NW. This was just perfect as it meant we were drifting away from the “hard bits” of the atoll and still making a bit of headway north. With LTY all set up and happy we took advantage of the situation to get a good rest overnight in this safe setup as we watched the big tuna and other commercial ships come and go from Majuro. They are all well lit up and some have AIS so it was easy to keep an eye on them and we were well out of their way as most all of them are headed NE or NW from here.

So we both got some good rest knowing that we were safely bobbing around out here and we have now just finished our breakfast in some rolly seas watching the always soothing transition from night to day as the sun climbs its way up out of her bed off to the east and the moon is still high in the SW sky. I wanted to get this update out to you to let everyone know that we made it to Majuro just fine and with great speed with our HD jib now pulling us along. We will now make our way north for a bit to clear well past the top NW end of Majuro and then tack over to the east to be north of the pass and then start our way south to get close to the pass where we will meet Cary in Wasabi who has ever so kindly volunteered to help steer LTY through the pass and into the calm safety inside Majuro atoll. It will seem strange but also very nice to be calm and level after this time at sea and to not be moving but that too will be a great transition and I’m so excited about being able to show Christine around what has become another one of my “home ports” after coming here to Majuro since 2010.

We will let you know later today once we are safely on our mooring ball over in the center of the East end of Majuro atoll.

Christine, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

LTY UPDATE: Day #19 Jan 16, 2014

LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma

Day #19
Thursday, January 16th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)

LTY time: 15:20 Thurs Jan 16th (LTY time = UTC +12)
Location: about 25nm S of WEST end of Majuro
Position: 06 43.708 N, 171 08.171 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 4.5-5.5kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 340 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 18-35 kts ENE Apparent
Seas/Swell: 2.0m @ 6 sec out of E
Weather: Lots of storms today with gusting winds up to 40 kts out of ENE as they pass over with lots of rain.
Air temp: 89.6F 32C
Sea temp: 85.6 F 29.8 C
Barometer: 1014
Distance travelled: 1389nm
Distance to Majuro anchorage: 61nm

NEW SAIL & NEW RUDDER SETUP and MAJURO HERE WE COME!

And so the adventure continues! When we left you in the wee hours this morning a big storm had jumped on us with winds of 50+ kts as it passed over with torrential rain. Not usually a problem but this time it was enough to get at the tiny spot on the seam above the clew (aft bottom sail corner) and rip it all the way across the bottom third of the sail. It sounded much worse than it really was and we soon had the tattered and torn headsail all safely furled up on the front forestay. With no head sail to balance out our sail/rudder combination and with the much reduced sail area we were down to about 1 knot of speed and heading pretty much due west.

This gave us the opportunity to try out motoring so I changed the position of the rudder a bit by letting out the port side lines leading down to the aft end of the rudder and pulled in the ones on the starboard side to get the rudder lined up on center and then fired up the motor and put it in gear. It didn’t work out too well because we still had the main sail up with two reefs in it and didn’t want to take it down in these high winds and so it was very difficult to steer as we needed to go too close to the wind’s direction and so the main would back and throw us off course.

The solution in part was to take down the torn 125% genoa headsail and put up the heavy duty 98% jib but it was already 3am so we decided to wait till morning with hopefully calmer conditions and daylight and use this time to both get some sleep. Unfortunately my playing with the rudder had moved it somehow so it was now banging very hard down below with each roll LTY would take in the large roller waves coming through us and was making a heck of a racket with this nasty metal on metal pounding. So we decided to sleep up in the salon where we were far enough away from the aft rudder and the noise and vibration was a bit less and we both got in a few hours of sleep.

At dawn we were up and anxious to figure out what was going on with the rudder and change the head sails out. Sea conditions were pretty nasty with these big rollers so there was a lot of height differential at the stern where I needed to go in with my snorkel and mask and dive down below to the rudder to check things out. But not much choice and the water is so pleasantly warm and such a beautiful shade of Indigo blue it wasn’t too bad and so I donned my mask and snorkel again, put down the swim ladder and jumped in for my morning swim. Turned out that my playing with the lines had allowed the rudder to move hard over to starboard and the noise was from the broken stub of the rudder post that sticks out of the top of the rudder, pulling out from the flange that used to be welded to it. The lines I had wrapped around the rudder top and bottom and had coming off the aft edge were also sliding around the sides a bit as the lashing I’d tied on had worked lose so I had Christine cut me some new line and I dove down to tighten up the lines and lash each pair to each other at the aft end to make sure that is where the lines were pulling against when we were adjusting them from up above for our make shift steering control. It was pretty boisterous down there with all those big waves, some perhaps kicked up from Cyclone Ian down in Tonga last week and the rising and falling hull of Learnativity but I was able to get the lines tightened up again and lashed together again and all was well with this MacGyver steering solution. Next we adjusted the four lines up above again to get the rudder back on center and realign the felt pen marks on the lines so we know where center is and we were ready to test them out again once we had replaced the head sail. Best of all, once we got the rudder back on center, the banging stopped and it was much more pleasant aboard for all 3 of us so we took the time to have breakfast.

Next up was taking down the torn genoa and putting up the jib. Taking the genoa down turned into quite the challenge as the winds were still up over 25 knots and the sail was essentially in two pieces which had furled up different amounts of turns on the furler when we brought it all in quickly last night. So I went up to the bow and spent an hour or so unfurling the drum by hand to let out the top sail section while simultaneously unwrapping the bottom section so they would be back in synch with their attachment to the furling extrusion and we could pull it down. Of course a new storm came through as we were in the midst of doing so and I got a very thorough pressure washing in the process. Once I had both sections of the sail wrapped up evenly on the furler with about half their width out flying loose in the high winds, I managed to wrestle the bottom section with the big clew ring on it back on board and Christine was now standing up in the forward cabin with her head through the big hatch and I was able to pass her the clew and she could start pulling the tattered sail into the cabin. At one point I looked back from my precarious stance up at the rock and rolling bow to see that the high winds were about to rip Christine out of the cabin like one of those medieval rock throwing sling shot machines as she hung on to the clew end of the sail and launch her into outer space. But she was her usual awemazing self and hung on to it with her considerable strength and there was no way some torn sail and big winds were going to beat her! And so we prevailed and managed to bring the rest of the sail into the foreword cabin with me turning the furling drum by hand to finish unfurling the sail cloth and then carefully letting out the halyard to lower the sail and Christine pulled the wet tangled mess of Dacron down the hatch. Whew! First part done.

I went and dug out the 98% jib from its safe spot in the bathtub storage area I’d built in Fiji and we dragged it up to the foreword cabin and I went up on deck to pull while Christine pushed from below and we got the big heavy duty jib up on deck. Our timing worked out well as the winds died down to 15 or so for the next 10 minutes or so and we were able to unroll the big heavy jib on deck, fasten it to the furler shackles top and bottom and while Christine fed the bolt rope front edge into the groove in the aluminum furler extrusion, I went back to the mast and pulled in the halyard by hand as far as possible and then the rest with the winch on the mast. We had to leave the sail completely free and out to the considerable wind to raise it so it was a bit noisy and rough on the boat for a bit but as I finished locking down the shackle pins with zip ties and tightened up the halyard to tension the foreword luff edge of the sail, Christine went back to the aft deck and started winching in the port sheet to pull in the sail and get it under control. The boat and sail quieted right down with this and we were soon standing in the protection of the cockpit, dripping wet and grinning like Cheshire cats as we watched that new jib cup itself around the winds and we felt the comforting tug of LTY picking up speed. Within minutes we were up to over 5.5 knots and heading in almost the perfect course for the west end of Majuro so it was very satisfying indeed and we just sat and enjoyed the protection of the cockpit to keep us out of the raging winds, seas and rain outside and watch as LTY ploughed right through it all at great speed and we were back on course heading for Majuro.

It is now a few hours later, 4pm here for us, and we are settled back into good sailing and right on course for our waypoint on the West side of Majuro which now lies about 22nm NNW of our current position. We’ve changed from going around the East end of Majuro to the west end as it will be easier to lay that heading and not require us to tack to get there. We’ll see what time we get up there and right now that looks to be midnight or so and then we’ll tack left to head east well up to the north of Majuro and make our way over to the pass and wait for daylight to turn south and make our way through the pass and into the safe inner section of Majuro atoll.

Still too many variables with weather, sails and rudder to know just when we’ll go through the pass but looks like we’ll be able to do so tomorrow which is Friday for us and we’ll decide if we can steer our own way through of if we’ll ask Cary to come out and meet us in Wasabi and help tow/steer us in. Meanwhile Christine is taking a VERY hard earned nap as I get this all typed up and sent off to you and so I’ll leave off for now and be back with more updates, ideally from the mooring ball inside Majuro atoll!

Thanks for joining us on this latest fun adventure of ours.

Christine, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

LTY UPDATE: Day #18 Jan 15, 2014

LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma

Day #18
Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)

LTY time: 22:04 Wed Jan 15th (LTY time = UTC +12)
Location: about 52nm S of Majuro
Position: 06 06.542 N, 171 24.111 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 4-5kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 352 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 13-28 kts E Apparent
Seas/Swell: 2.0m @ 6 sec out of E
Weather: Another beautiful day for sailing, mostly clear skies, few clouds and good winds 8 to highs of 26 mostly of the ENE to E
Air temp: 84.2F 28C
Sea temp: 88 F 31.0 C
Barometer: 1014
Distance travelled: 1349nm
Distance to Majuro anchorage: 70nm NN

SAILING the BALANCED LIFE

Well, everything continues to work amazingly well with the jury rigged lines we have coming from the aft edge of the broken rudder up to the decks on each side. These are keeping the rudder in place and are allowing us to make small adjustments to the rudder angle and thus counter the turning forces from the sails and balance them out. This is then how we are steering the boat now making small adjustments to these lines to change the rudder angle and then adjusting the sails to get the boat in a balanced state on a set course in a given set of wind conditions. We’ve been learning how to tweak these lines to keep the rudder at a set angle and counteract the forces from the sails and that has been working out very well all last night and today so we are now just 50nm south of the east end of the Majuro atoll and should be up there tomorrow some time. Hard to estimate our ETA just yet as our speeds vary quite a bit with the varying wind and sea conditions. If we can get up to Majuro and over the 15nm or so along the north coast to the pass and if the wind and seas are cooperating then we may go in tomorrow. If not we’ll wait till the next morning, Friday for us, and go in then.

We are in Email contact with some good friends in Majuro, Karen and Cary on Seal, and they have kindly offered to help out and assist us in getting through the pass with their power boat if needed so as usual we are VERY well taken care of. We should be up to the east end of Majuro by tomorrow morning sometime depending on how things go here tonight and then we can see what the seas and winds are like and what time we would be at the pass and decide if we are going to go in tomorrow or Friday. The pass into Majuro atoll is very wide and well-marked as this is the home of the world’s largest tuna fleet and other commercial traffic so it does not present any significant challenges to get through. The question is how well we can steer LTY when she is powered by the engine and prop. We will do some testing of that tomorrow by running those lines coming up the sides of the hull from the aft end of the rudder, through some turning blocks up on deck and over to our winches. In theory this should allow us to move the rudder while under way and thus steer the boat while motoring through the pass. If that doesn’t work we will ask Cary to come out with his power boat “Wasabi” and help tow/steer us in.

Weather wise we had a great day with mostly clear skies and lots of sun all day. The only problem has been varying winds from almost none at all for a few hours around noon so we just sat still, to a few squalls which passed by and gave us changing wind directions and winds up to 35 knots a few times. Overall though the weather was great and earlier tonight it was clear and bright with the almost full moon lighting our way. Right now it is just after midnight and I’ve got a storm going through with winds up to almost 50kts so it’s a bit rough but not likely to last too long and the rudder is holding well so LTY is flying along at almost 6 knots at times.

So in spite of or perhaps because of these latest challenges, Christine and I continue to marvel at how fortunate we are to have the opportunity to experience all this and how it gives us all new perspectives on the wonders of living, loving and learning. We may take us longer to get to Majuro than we thought and we will be arriving with lots of new jobs to do but we’ll also be smiling inside and out with the new stories we have to tell, the increased gratitude and satisfaction we feel and we’ll enjoy the sunrises and sunsets each day hence a bit more than we do already so it is all good.

1am UPDATE!! Well, just as I was typing that last note there was a sudden BANG! and lots of noise out on the port side deck and it didn’t take me long to see that the headsail had ripped. For the last while there has been a small section of seam that had come unstitched just off the clew which is the ring at the bottom aft end of the sail which the control sheets/lines attach to but it had been holding fine up to now and we were waiting till we got some calm weather to resew it as we have to drop the whole sail to the deck to get at this section to repair it. However that last batch of 50 knot winds was just too much I guess and so it has let go and torn all the way across the seam. Christine got up when she heard all the noise and we’ve got it all furled up safely now so we can continue to sail just very slowly. I don’t want to try to bring it all down and feed on the other headsail we have now in the dark and the midst of this rather large storm so I’ve sent her back to bed for now and we’ll look at doing this in the morning when there is good light and hopefully some calm seas and wind. In decent conditions this isn’t a difficult thing to do at all and we should also be able to resew the sail with the good sail maker sewing machine we cary on board so all in all nothing too severe here at all and it will just set our arrival time in Majuro back a bit.

Stay tuned folks! Never a dull moment here on the good ship Learnativity and we’ll be back to you with another update tomorrow.

Christine, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

LTY UPDATE: Day #17 Jan 14, 2014

Great to hear all went well with LTY. Am in the Philippines for a month. Through Feb 3. Take care.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 14, 2014, at 9:37 PM, "Wayne Hodgins" wrote:
>
> LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma
>
> Day #17
> Tuesday, January 14th, 2014
> (Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)
>
> LTY time: 19:55 Tues Jan 14th (LTY time = UTC +12)
> Location: about 140nm S of Majuro
> Position: 04 44.049 N, 172 00.791 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
> SOG: 5.8kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
> COG: 354 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
> Wind: 10-18kts E Apparent
> Seas/Swell: 1.0m @ 6 sec out of E
> Weather: Beautiful day for sailing, blue skies and good winds 8 to highs of 26 mostly of the ENE to E
> Air temp: 84.2F 28C
> Sea temp: 88 F 31.0 C
> Barometer: 1014
> Distance travelled: 1248nm
> Distance to Majuro anchorage: 152nm NN
>
> It was another busy and good day aboard the good ship Learnativity today. After a much needed few hours of sleep we were back at it this morning figuring out ways to keep LTY sailing without any steering. We had managed very well all through the night to keep her on course with the two lines we’d been able to lasso around the rudder and keep it from falling completely off and to limit its movement. After some playing around we were able to find a combination of how much sail we put up in our main and headsail and how we sheeted them in to balance out the keel and rudder and sail a course that was fairly close to what we wanted to get to Majuro. Once the sun was up high enough and we’d had some breakfast we took all the sails back down to stop our forward motion and go take a closer look at the rudder situation and our quick jury rig for lashing it to the boat.
>
> As you may recall from last night’s posting we’d been able to get two ropes around the anchor and pull them up on either side of the hull to stabilize the rudder’s movement and keep it from flailing around after the shaft broke free. This morning I was back in the water with my fins, mask and snorkel and this time a proper harness that wasn’t trying to cut me in half. The waves were a bit higher today so it was even more of a challenge to hang on back there while the tail end of LTY was rising high up out of the water one minute and then splashing down deep into it the next. However I was once again able to glom onto the rudder like Gollum riding some bucking bronco and hold onto those zinc anodes well enough to get more lines around the rudder. One of the lines I’d put on yesterday had slipped down to the bottom and was why we had so much difficulty trying to move the rudder last night so my first order of business was to loosen that off and move it back up to the top with the other line. I then lashed these two lines together such that the lines could only come off the very aft tip of the rudder and then be led up the side of the hull and give us the most leverage to move it back and forth and give us some steerage and keep the rudder in one position. For safety and extra leverage I then rigged up two more lines to the bottom of the rudder and let them up the sides of the hull to the cleats on the aft corner. This now gave us four lines, two on each side, leading off the very aft edge of the rudder and we tested them out to see how well they moved the rudder as we tightened one side and then the other. It worked amazingly well actually and so we then spent some time putting marks in each line to indicate the position when the rudder was aligned with the hull and therefore steering the boat straight ahead and a few more marks to indicate when the rudder was moved off to port and starboard several positions. We hoped this would enable us to pull in or slack off these lines to these points and give us a specific amount of rudder angle to port or starboard which would give us the amount of steerage to counter the opposite pull from the sails. If it worked, this would enable us to adjust the rudder in small increments to balance out the sails and keep LTY on a set course.
>
> With all these lines attached and cleated off to each aft corner of the boat, we were ready to go test it out and see if our grand theory and design actually worked in the very real world at sea. To our delight it did! We pulled the rudder over about 6” to port buy pulling in the two lines coming up the port side and cleated them off and then tightened up the two lines on the starboard side to hold the rudder in this position. By keeping all four lines well tensioned against each other we were able to keep the rudder relatively still and at this set angle. We could now use the motor to push the hull around in a counter clockwise circle with the main raised part way and get us pointed into about the right direction to just catch the wind and then unfurl the big headsail which would fill with the wind and start driving us forward. The sails try to push the boat towards the wind which in our case was to starboard (right) and hence we had set the rudder to move the boat to port and by adjusting the sails we were able to get these two opposing forces to balance out and keep LTY sailing a set course.
>
> It worked extremely well and we then spent the rest of the day experimenting and learning how to adjust our course to match the wind direction and velocity by furling the head sail in or out and by sheeting it in tighter or looser which would change how much the sails pushed LTY’s bow to starboard. We then experimented with moving the aft lines going down to the rudder to adjust the counter force pushing LTY to port. It was a bit tricky because just a wee bit of movement of these lines going down to the rudder made quite a difference in the angle of the rudder and hence the counter force or steering, but with the marks Christine had carefully put on each line we were able to move them about ½” at a time and then see what effect this had on our course. So we spent the day tweaking these combinations of sail and rudder angle as the wind went up and down and changed direction throughout the day. By the time the sun was setting we had learned how to do this pretty well and we made good progress with good speed throughout the whole day. It is now well after dark as I type this up and we are averaging over 4 knots and keeping our course reasonably close to what we want. The winds are up and down throughout the day and night as usual, ranging from lows of 8 to highs of 28 and they have been shifting more to the east to now be just a bit north of due east so we’ve had to adjust the sails and rudder along the way but we are getting pretty good at it. More challenging is when the wind dies off as a squall approaches and passes and we end up going in a circle but that’s only happened two or three times today and we are able to recover within a half hour or so and get back on course and back to sailing north each time.
>
> We also had one of the SS brackets that holds one of the forward stays for the mast break off all of a sudden last night and so late this afternoon I was able to rig up a replacement using some new high tech line that is stronger than stainless to lash the T bolt from the shroud’s turnbuckle to the SS tab welded to the deck and get it all tensioned and back to being like new.
>
> So all in all we have had a GREAT day and are very pleased with ourselves and with LTY. We’ve become a great pair of detectives and good “Mr. & Mrs. MacGyver” to come up with creative solutions for whatever problems crop up onboard LTY and we’ve had a beautiful and comfy day and now night of sailing.
>
> The moon is almost full and the skies have been clear all day so the sky and seas are lit up to an amazing degree by the intense moonlight and the visibility as I gaze out at sea from the cockpit is quite stunning. It turns the whole scene into the bright, sharp black and white movie and the seas have calmed way down this evening to reflect the moonlight even better. So I’m going to go head out on deck to enjoy that a bit more before heading down to wake the sleeping Christine for her watch at 3am. Thanks to all of you who sent us Emails of concern and best wishes, they worked VERY well!
>
> BTW, for those who would like to, you can send Emails to us while we are out at sea to either [email protected] or [email protected] We typically download Emails using our sat phone each evening so we are only on once a day but we do really appreciate the connection with those who do write and we try to respond within a day or so. Emails work very well and the only limitation is to keep them to text only, though they can be of any length, and just not include and attachments, graphics, pictures and the like to keep the overall file size down as small as possible because the sat phone connection is VERY slllllooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
>
> Night for now, back at you tomorrow night with the next update as we start to close in on Majuro and this latest passage comes to an end unfortunately.
>
> Christine, Wayne & Ruby
>

LTY UPDATE: Day #17 Jan 14, 2014

LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma

Day #17
Tuesday, January 14th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)

LTY time: 19:55 Tues Jan 14th (LTY time = UTC +12)
Location: about 140nm S of Majuro
Position: 04 44.049 N, 172 00.791 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 5.8kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 354 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 10-18kts E Apparent
Seas/Swell: 1.0m @ 6 sec out of E
Weather: Beautiful day for sailing, blue skies and good winds 8 to highs of 26 mostly of the ENE to E
Air temp: 84.2F 28C
Sea temp: 88 F 31.0 C
Barometer: 1014
Distance travelled: 1248nm
Distance to Majuro anchorage: 152nm NN

It was another busy and good day aboard the good ship Learnativity today. After a much needed few hours of sleep we were back at it this morning figuring out ways to keep LTY sailing without any steering. We had managed very well all through the night to keep her on course with the two lines we’d been able to lasso around the rudder and keep it from falling completely off and to limit its movement. After some playing around we were able to find a combination of how much sail we put up in our main and headsail and how we sheeted them in to balance out the keel and rudder and sail a course that was fairly close to what we wanted to get to Majuro. Once the sun was up high enough and we’d had some breakfast we took all the sails back down to stop our forward motion and go take a closer look at the rudder situation and our quick jury rig for lashing it to the boat.

As you may recall from last night’s posting we’d been able to get two ropes around the anchor and pull them up on either side of the hull to stabilize the rudder’s movement and keep it from flailing around after the shaft broke free. This morning I was back in the water with my fins, mask and snorkel and this time a proper harness that wasn’t trying to cut me in half. The waves were a bit higher today so it was even more of a challenge to hang on back there while the tail end of LTY was rising high up out of the water one minute and then splashing down deep into it the next. However I was once again able to glom onto the rudder like Gollum riding some bucking bronco and hold onto those zinc anodes well enough to get more lines around the rudder. One of the lines I’d put on yesterday had slipped down to the bottom and was why we had so much difficulty trying to move the rudder last night so my first order of business was to loosen that off and move it back up to the top with the other line. I then lashed these two lines together such that the lines could only come off the very aft tip of the rudder and then be led up the side of the hull and give us the most leverage to move it back and forth and give us some steerage and keep the rudder in one position. For safety and extra leverage I then rigged up two more lines to the bottom of the rudder and let them up the sides of the hull to the cleats on the aft corner. This now gave us four lines, two on each side, leading off the very aft edge of the rudder and we tested them out to see how well they moved the rudder as we tightened one side and then the other. It worked amazingly well actually and so we then spent some time putting marks in each line to indicate the position when the rudder was aligned with the hull and therefore steering the boat straight ahead and a few more marks to indicate when the rudder was moved off to port and starboard several positions. We hoped this would enable us to pull in or slack off these lines to these points and give us a specific amount of rudder angle to port or starboard which would give us the amount of steerage to counter the opposite pull from the sails. If it worked, this would enable us to adjust the rudder in small increments to balance out the sails and keep LTY on a set course.

With all these lines attached and cleated off to each aft corner of the boat, we were ready to go test it out and see if our grand theory and design actually worked in the very real world at sea. To our delight it did! We pulled the rudder over about 6” to port buy pulling in the two lines coming up the port side and cleated them off and then tightened up the two lines on the starboard side to hold the rudder in this position. By keeping all four lines well tensioned against each other we were able to keep the rudder relatively still and at this set angle. We could now use the motor to push the hull around in a counter clockwise circle with the main raised part way and get us pointed into about the right direction to just catch the wind and then unfurl the big headsail which would fill with the wind and start driving us forward. The sails try to push the boat towards the wind which in our case was to starboard (right) and hence we had set the rudder to move the boat to port and by adjusting the sails we were able to get these two opposing forces to balance out and keep LTY sailing a set course.

It worked extremely well and we then spent the rest of the day experimenting and learning how to adjust our course to match the wind direction and velocity by furling the head sail in or out and by sheeting it in tighter or looser which would change how much the sails pushed LTY’s bow to starboard. We then experimented with moving the aft lines going down to the rudder to adjust the counter force pushing LTY to port. It was a bit tricky because just a wee bit of movement of these lines going down to the rudder made quite a difference in the angle of the rudder and hence the counter force or steering, but with the marks Christine had carefully put on each line we were able to move them about ½” at a time and then see what effect this had on our course. So we spent the day tweaking these combinations of sail and rudder angle as the wind went up and down and changed direction throughout the day. By the time the sun was setting we had learned how to do this pretty well and we made good progress with good speed throughout the whole day. It is now well after dark as I type this up and we are averaging over 4 knots and keeping our course reasonably close to what we want. The winds are up and down throughout the day and night as usual, ranging from lows of 8 to highs of 28 and they have been shifting more to the east to now be just a bit north of due east so we’ve had to adjust the sails and rudder along the way but we are getting pretty good at it. More challenging is when the wind dies off as a squall approaches and passes and we end up going in a circle but that’s only happened two or three times today and we are able to recover within a half hour or so and get back on course and back to sailing north each time.

We also had one of the SS brackets that holds one of the forward stays for the mast break off all of a sudden last night and so late this afternoon I was able to rig up a replacement using some new high tech line that is stronger than stainless to lash the T bolt from the shroud’s turnbuckle to the SS tab welded to the deck and get it all tensioned and back to being like new.

So all in all we have had a GREAT day and are very pleased with ourselves and with LTY. We’ve become a great pair of detectives and good “Mr. & Mrs. MacGyver” to come up with creative solutions for whatever problems crop up onboard LTY and we’ve had a beautiful and comfy day and now night of sailing.

The moon is almost full and the skies have been clear all day so the sky and seas are lit up to an amazing degree by the intense moonlight and the visibility as I gaze out at sea from the cockpit is quite stunning. It turns the whole scene into the bright, sharp black and white movie and the seas have calmed way down this evening to reflect the moonlight even better. So I’m going to go head out on deck to enjoy that a bit more before heading down to wake the sleeping Christine for her watch at 3am. Thanks to all of you who sent us Emails of concern and best wishes, they worked VERY well!

BTW, for those who would like to, you can send Emails to us while we are out at sea to either [email protected] or [email protected] We typically download Emails using our sat phone each evening so we are only on once a day but we do really appreciate the connection with those who do write and we try to respond within a day or so. Emails work very well and the only limitation is to keep them to text only, though they can be of any length, and just not include and attachments, graphics, pictures and the like to keep the overall file size down as small as possible because the sat phone connection is VERY slllllooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Night for now, back at you tomorrow night with the next update as we start to close in on Majuro and this latest passage comes to an end unfortunately.

Christine, Wayne & Ruby

LTY UPDATE: Day #16 Jan 14, 2014

LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma

Day #16
Monday, January 13th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)

LTY time: 01:00 Tues Jan 14th (LTY time = UTC +12)
Location: about 1188nm NNW of Rotuma, Fiji
Or 198nm S of Majuro
Position: 03 53.135 N, 171 58.126 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 2.8kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 346 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 5-18kts E Apparent
Seas/Swell: 1.5m @ 6 sec out of E
Weather: Very nice day, sunny, blue skies and winds which continue to cycle from lows of 8 to highs of 38 mostly of the ENE to E
Air temp: 84.2F 28C
Sea temp: 88 F 31.0 C
Barometer: 1014
Distance travelled: 1188nm
Distance to Majuro anchorage: 198nm NN

RUDDERLESS!

I’ve been growingly concerned that this latest passage has been going far too well and that you might be getting bored with all these Emails about blissful sailing day and night in this private universe we have out here. Up till about 5pm this afternoon I was going to post another brief update to say that we’d had just that, another day of blissful sailing through a moonlit night and a sunny day under blue skies and only a few hours of storms and squalls. But thankfully that all changed quite quickly and we now have the first of what I’m sure will be a multi-part entertainment show for you. Christine and I had been having another leisurely day of chatting and going through the big onboard atlas to show each other places we’ve lived in around the world. This takes quite a bit of time for both of us as we have grown up traveling and camping with our respective families and then continuing to live and work around the world as adults and so we both have lots of stories to tell from all our travels. Little did we know that we were about to add another great story to this latest adventure called life.

It all started quietly enough a bit after 5pm when the head sail backed and LTY slowed down to under 2 knots after passing through a storm cell of some high winds up into the 40’s and a good downpour of rain. This has been the pattern for the past few days, sailing in excellent conditions with winds 20-25 knots and today moved over to being out of the East which is just perfect for our course of 350 degree we want to be on to sail past the west side of Milli island, the southernmost of the Marshall Islands and then up to the east end of Majuro atoll. Christine was at the helm trying to steer the boat back on course as she had done countless times before but wasn’t having any luck in getting the boat to turn. She asked me to take a look and see if I could see why LTY was acting so weird but it did the same thing for me. You would turn the wheel, the rudder indicator would show that the rudder was turning but no matter if you turned it all the way to port or all the way over to starboard the boat didn’t turn?

So we flipped into our Watson and Holmes super sleuth detective mode, (I AM with a murder mystery author par excellence after all!) and we started trouble shooting the problem. The hydraulic steering rams and rudder post and arm are all under the aft cabin bed so I took that all up so we could see what was physically happening with the rudder and steering. I watched as Christine turned the wheel and it all worked fine; turning the wheel moved the double acting steering cylinders which turned the rudder. Next I removed the covers on the hydraulic steering pump which is turned by the steering wheel in the cockpit and found that the hydraulic fluid was low. This sounded promising as the problem because if there was air in the system it would just compress and the rudder wouldn’t turn or could be moving on its own so we set to work adding new fluid and bleeding out all the air in the system. Seemed to work well, got lots of air out we slowly added fluid and it took about ½ a liter of ATF oil to fill the pump fully and within about 10 minutes we had all the air out and were ready to test it all out. Fired up the engine, turned the wheel hard over to port and …………………………………………………. NOTHING! Turn the wheel hard over to starboard and ……………………………………….. NOTHING! We had NO steering?!?

Very strange because I could go back to the aft cabin and watch as Christine turned the wheel and confirm that the pistons moved which in turn rotated the rudder arm mounted solidly to the top of the 2” die SS vertical rudder post which goes out through the bottom of the hull and has a big 6” diameter flange which is solidly bolted to a matching flange on the top of 2” SS rudder post that is part of the rudder itself. LTY has what is called a “skeg mounted rudder” which means that there is a large vertical “fin” that is welded to the hull and extends down to the bottom of the rudder and has a big beefy arm on it which holds another short 2” SS post with flanges to attach the bottom of the rudder. This is a VERY solid rudder system as the rudder is solidly attached both top and bottom to the boat. So it was definitely puzzling that we could watch the rudder arm and upper post turn just fine and yet we seemed to have no steering?

The only thing left to do was to go dive on the rudder and check out what was actually happening under water and so we pulled in all our sails, I donned flippers, mask and snorkel, Christine tied an old nylon line we have attached to the aft swim steps around my chest to act as a safety tether and I dove in. Of course the other pertinent bit of data for you is that while we have pretty much stopped LTY from moving, the wind which was running about 25 knots was still pushing us forward about 1.2 knots and it was also producing some reasonably big swell and seas which were running about 2-3 meters. So LTY was rocking and a rolling very well in these conditions and that all translated into a LOT of action at the stern where I was now swimming around. As these big swells would come in the water level would rise up and down 2-3 meters and they would lift LTY up and pitch her forward and roll her from side to side but of course these actions are not in synch so the net result is that the aft end of LTY where I’m trying to work is now lifting up completely out of the water by more than a meter and the water is dropping down even more so it is a bit like being in a giant wave pool that happens to also be in a giant blender! However I was able to hang onto the swim ladder with one hand and the nylon tether rope with the other and keep myself dangling from the aft end of LTY as she rose up and down and rolled from side to side and keep my masked head down into the water enough of the time to be able to see the rudder. It was starting to get a bit late in the day and the sun was getting low on the horizon but there was still surprisingly good light underneath so I had a very clear view of a very bad situation. The rudder was freely swinging back and forth like a big loose fence gate in a wind! Huh?? How was that possible when the rudder post inside the boat and the steering wheel were perfectly still?

I did my best to time my dive to be just after one of the waves came through and down I went under the boat to get over to the rudder and take a closer look. It was a bit tricky with the rudder flipping randomly back and forth from side to side but there are four large zinc anti-corrosion blocks bolted to the aft end of the rudder so I was able to dive down, grab hold of one of them with one hand and push my other hand up against the bottom of the hull and in this way I could stabilize myself, well sort of, and keep the hull and the rudder at bay and not be bashing my head or slamming my body. Worked pretty well and let me get a good close look at the rudder situation and I could then clearly see the problem. The rudder post where it comes out of the top of the rudder and is welded onto the big flange had broken completely off so that the rudder was now only attached by the bottom post/flange assembly going into the skeg and meanwhile the upper rudder post from the boat was completely detached from the rudder so it was sitting nice and still while the rest of the rudder assembly flopped freely back and forth with the force of the water. Not good!

This meant we had no steering at all now and fixing it would require hauling the boat out and rebuilding the top rudder/flange section so not something that could be fixed at all at sea or with the boat in the water. Hmmmm, what to do now? Well out of breath by now I did my best to kick my way free of the thrashing rudder and smashing hull and try to get back to the surface clear of the aft end of the hull and the swim ladder. Worked reasonably well and I was able to grab the swim ladder on one of its trips down to smack me and hold on well enough to breathe and talk to Christine and give her the brief summery; we’ve got no rudder dear!

Now what? Well, first order of business is to get the rudder tied off somehow so it isn’t swinging wildly back and forth and to also make sure the rudder is well attached to the boat because it might now be possible for it to come completely away at the top and the weight of this huge rudder in these seas could possibly snap off the bottom shaft and the rudder would break free and head for Davey Jones' locker/parts department. So I asked Christine to dig out a length of 10mm line, tie it off to the boat and toss me the other end. My plan was to see if I could get this looped through one of those zinc anodes that are bolted to the aft sides of the rudder and then run the line up the side of the hull and tie it off up on deck. With one of these on either side I could stabilize the rudder’s thrashing and also keep it attached to the boat should the whole thing break free. Sounded like a good idea but even after I was able to glom myself onto the flailing rudder like some cowboy riding a bucking bareback stallion, there wasn’t enough space between the zinc anode and the rudder to get the rope through so I would need to pry it away with a crow bar or come up with another idea.

Trying to hang onto a heavy crow bar and pry the steel bar inside the zinc anode away from a flailing rudder just wasn’t going to work so the better idea was to lasso the whole rudder with a loop of this 10mm line and cinch it up tight with the line coming off the aft end of the rudder. If I could get two of lines on like this I should be able to pull one up each side of the hull and stabilize the rudder’s movement and maybe even figure out some way to still move the rudder into a position and hold it there and actually give us back some steerage. Amazing what even my tiny little brain can come up with while thrashing around in the open ocean! We went to work to get this line fed through the tiny gap between the aft edge of the skeg and the forward edge of the rudder without having it guillotine my fingers off, then bring the end back to the aft end of the rudder, tie on a slip knot and feed the other end through and back up to Christine so she could pull it tight and up the aft side of the hull. It took us about an hour to do so as there as a LOT of water “action” back there lifting me up into the air one minute and then plunging me down the next. All quit manageable really but the new problem was all these lines that were now also thrashing around and wrapping around my legs, ripping off my mask and snorkel and creating a real tangled mess of lines around my legs that I was busy trying to turn into a lasso and tie off tight to the rudder.

The worst was actually the line I had purposely tied around me for a tether as it was this well weathered nylon line which had turned into this stiff wire haired snake that was now rubbing my skin off in large welts all over my arms, chest and legs. So I managed to climb back aboard LTY and get onto the bottom transom step to take a quick breather, untied the abrasive tether and had Christine find a softer line and tie it around me for round two of rudder wrestling. Eventually we persevered and got two of these lines wrapped around the rudder and cinched up tight. The anodes worked well as stops to prevent the lines from sliding up over the top of the rudder and we were then able to bring the other end of these lines up each side of the hull and cleat them off to the bottom of the large SS poles bolted onto the aft corner of each side that are the posts for our radar and wind generator. WHEW!!!

It is now almost 7am and so I’ll sum this all up for now by letting you know that after lots of experimentation we’ve actually been able to come up with a great little system where we have these lines from the rudder holding it off to port and keeping it in position and then adjusting combinations of the head sail furling and sheeting to hold a course! Works amazingly well so far and we’ve even been able to play around with the rudder angle by tightening and loosening those two lines coming off the rudder and then adjust how much head sail we furl out and how much we sheet it in and are slowly figuring out how to steer this way. The wind of course is a real challenge as we can’t control its direction nor velocity and as it changes we need to change our setup to keep everything balanced and keep us on a set heading, but it’s working amazingly well so far.

Christine has had a few hours sleep and so she’s going to spell me off now for a bit so I can get a few hours myself and then when the sun comes up I can dive back down and attach some more lines and figure out some ways to perhaps rig up these lines through pulleys to the dinghy davits or something to be able to adjust them a bit more as we go and give us some actual steering control. So for now, all things considered, we are going GREAT! We’re safe and in no danger, we’ve got some reasonable ability to steer and stay on a course and we’re making pretty good speed towards Majuro still. I’ll do my best to get back to you later today with the update of how we manage with all this but for now there’s no need to worry and we are both smiling with that great feeling of satisfaction of once again turning adversity into adventure and we’ve added one more story to our list! Who could ask for more?

Night for now, well morning really so this is the good ship Learnativity signing off.

Christine, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog.

LTY UPDATE: Day #15 Jan 12, 2014

LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma

Day #15
Sunday, January 12th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)

LTY time: 19:15 (LTY time = UTC +12)
Location: about 1071nm NNE of Rotuma, Fiji
Or 302nm S of Majuro
Position: 00 33.723 N, 172 36.753 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 5.8kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 358 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 22-28kts E Apparent
Seas/Swell: 2.5m @ 6 sec out of NNE
Weather: Drastically changed weather that built into 60nm winds and very high wind waves
Air temp: 77F 25C
Sea temp: 88 F 31.0 C
Barometer: 1013
Distance travelled: 1071nm
Distance to Majuro anchorage: 329nm NNE

SNOW DAY @ SEA

It’s been a grey, wet and rainy sailing for us since last night’s update with pretty much completely overcast skies the whole way. However LTY has this great completely covered cockpit with roll down windows/curtains which we can put up or down or pole out to keep us dry and airy at the same time. So we’ve been able to have what feels like a “snow day” as we sit tucked all snug as bugs in a rug being so warm and dry inside our little cocoon here and watch the big waves from the storms roll by and under us all day long. Ruby has certainly been loving it as she gets to squirm her way in between us and snuggle right in to snooze the days away.

It’s been rather blustery much of the time with winds climbing up into the 40’s on occasion and then sometimes falling off completely to under 10 knots. So our speed and course have varied a lot but we’ve been maintaining over 4 knots average and have done about 104 nm in the past 24 hours. Being on the no plan plan with no expectation of our arrival date makes this all the more enjoyable and slower equals more time enjoying the specialness of a passage and time together.

Not much to report other than that so I’ll give your eyes a rest for a change from the more typical long LTY Update and simply wish you well, thank you for joining us and let you know it makes a big difference knowing you are there reading these updates and that we get to share this phenomenal experience with you.

Night for now!

Christine, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog