[Dar Es Salaam - Phuket] Day 14 -- Ocean Flat

With so many days of no or very little wind the ocean had gone flat. Besides the regular long waves of the swell the surface of the ocean was calm, rather like an endless meadow with an infrequent short breeze going through and disappearing out of sight in the distance. Day fourteen brought little change. In the morning I had found a fresh flying fish on deck and even a small calamar. Both were served for dinner. The afternoon brought about five or six hours of better wind, just a short change and at night the breeze died as suddenly as it had come. At least we could do some easy sailing and rest our ears from the constantly roaring engine for a short while.

As soon as the engine was turned off, though, there seemed to be too little power for our autopilot. The high-tech machine just couldn't manage the boat that continuously tried to pull into the wind. At a certain point, instead of pulling the rudder hard to the side the pilot would just fail, turn off, and restart. We put a reef in the main sail, so the steering would be easier. That made it a little better, but could not stop the situation repeating frequently. It wasn't before I went deep inside the internal parameters of the pilot and adjusting its behaviour that we got it working satisfactory, even though still far from perfect. Sailing through the early part of the night, there was no movie this night, so I went to bed early.

captains log:
wind N-NNW 3-5kn
motorsailing
calamar + flying fish
stop E 1030 - 1130
lost fish
E=208,5 hours
1200 S1°38 E59°38
1600 stop E, snake makreel
2nd reef in the main, pilot overworked
2200 start E, wind NNW 2-4kn