On Jun 17, 4:23 pm, wrote:
cruisin wrote:
Well, ya know, the Admiral says hi back, and wants me to tell you
she's not leaving here until we have an autopilot!
Not to mention an engine that works, but you can see her priorities.

An engine would be nice. Do you have a genset? A good autopilot makes
a lot of difference, sounds like your Admiral has her priorities
pretty straight.

What a complicated mess this boat really is. The wonderful Hydrovane
self-steering rig I spent too many boat units getting and installing
never really worked yet.

How much wind & what points of sail have you tried it in? Wind vane
self-steerers can be tough to get dialed in and some will simply not
generate enough force on the helm to hold on some points of sail.

The "bulletproof" Robertson autopilot uses
too many amps when sailing (it's either that or the fridge, and I like
cold beer) plus broke during the crossing, so we've been steering this
tub by hand for 3000+ miles. The company is out of business, so
getting it fixed is problematical, plus it's kind of intermittant-
breaks during a passage, then days after you've arrived in port it
decides it wasn't really broken.

Both fridge & autpilot technology have made big improvements in the
last 10 years. Also you might consider just adding more insulation to
your fridge box. An easy and cheap upgrade that all fridges could
benefit from.

This is the real stuff you deal with while cruising, along with the
pink sunsets and drinks by the pool at some luxury hotel.

Yeah, I can see you got it rough! Well we are in a pretty nice place
right now, not a luxury resort though. And it will never get as
overdeveloped as Tahiti

Shoulda bought the Coronado with the purple upolstery and the cedar
bucket.

Nah, you had it good with your Ranger 23. Now if you'd sailed *that*
to Tahiti you'd be a legend!

Glad to hear that you all completed a safe passage and are having a
good time.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

Hi Doug,
No built-in genset, just a Honda eu2000i that works pretty well for
us. The self-steering gizmo (Hydrovane) got de-vaned about three
nights out of PV when the mizzen preventor broke and the jybing mizz
boom knocked it into the drink. My "spare" vane was smaller, and
didn't have enough sail area to make it work. Apparently under
reaching conditions like we had, they are at their worst anyway.
Especially with big quartering seas. I think that's what killed the
autopilot as well. You can get the boat as balanced as can be, and
those seas just knock you right off course.
Almost sailed the Ranger 23 to Hawaii once- that would have been an
adventure, but Strider would have made it fine.
We're at the Yacht Club Tahiti dock right now, awaiting the new
exhaust riser and mixing elbow to appear so we can head over to
Moorea, then Bora Bora.
Yeah, life is pretty tough for us right now, but we're struggling
along. Someone has to do this stuff, right?

Mike