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BRIZO - Friday 9 November 2012



The sun has just risen and we are 371 miles from Richards Bay, South Africa. As expected, this leg has had some of the most challenging weather of our journey. Fortunately everyone on board has been feeling well in spite of the conditions.

The one serious problem we have had is the failure of our autopilot. Two days ago it had started behaving erratically and, hours later, stopped working altogether. After several attempts at repairs, we concluded that most likely the electric motor driving the hydraulic pump is not working and consequently we have had to hand-steer the boat ever since.

Fortunately we have four adults on board capable of steering and we have structured two watch teams of two people each, three hours on and three hours off. Each person has alternated hand-steering for 15 minutes at a time during the nights and 30 minutes during the day to avoid fatigue.

We are doing well but look forward to reaching port! Kathryn is now a helmsperson-in-training, learning how to steer using only the compass since there are no reference points on the horizon. We hope that Audrey will also want to learn this skill over the next two days. We hope to arrive Sunday afternoon before the next weather front moves through with another round of unpleasant sailing conditions...



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