sail round antartica

Louis Robein’s unintended landfall

colin bastable 1 Comment

https://globalsolochallenge.com/louis-robeins-argentina-en/

The hero of the Global Solo Challenge, Frenchman Louis Robein, went aground in a sandy bay on the southern Argentinian coast, having rounded Cape Horn. He was given a ride to a navy base and his boat was towed to safety with him, after 50kt winds had him pinned to a sandbar but kept him off the shore.

Towing off sandbar

Hopefully he will get his autopilot fixed and head back to sea pronto. Sea is safer than shore. Marco’s purple prose (link above) clearly wants Louis to surrender, the guy being obsessed with safety. I mean, everyone who sails solo around Cape Horn is thinking safety first, aren’t they?

Takeaways for when I eventually do my own solo rtw:

  • Autopilot: have spares
  • Make sure windvane works and has spares
  • Follow the winning track
  • Minimize advice (it dilutes energy)
  • Replace Iridium satcom with Star link
  • One rudder, heavy displacement and double skin is preferable to twin rudders light surfing hull.
  • Stay away from land.
  • Don’t let images like this get published:
Louis Robein arm-wrestles two Argie sailors

Courage, Louis!

Global Solo Challenger Abandons Yacht

colin bastable Leave a comment

Ronnie Simpson, who was lying 3rd in what I term the Solo Race Around Antartica, was dismasted early on Feb 12th 2024 when his yacht Shipyard Brewing fell off a big wave and almost pitchpoled: the boat took a nosedive into the trough of the wave. The boat stayed right side up, but the G froces of the sudden halt put tremendous strain on the standing rig, dismasting Shipyard Brewing.

A dismasted yacht is an unstable and dangerous platform. Without the mast to counterbalance the keel, it and its crew are going to suffer from wild gyrations from waves and wind.

So Ronnie requested help, and was rescued by a Taiwanese freighter, Sakizaya Youth. Shipyard Brewing was scuttled, to avoid endangering other vessels.

Ronnie had recently rounded Cape Horn, and must have thought that the worst was in his rearview mirror. More here: Ronnie Simpson Safe

Rod End!!

colin bastable 1 Comment

This means little to all y’all, but the lovely Nicole at Raymarine sent me a replacement Rod End for my Autohelm. The original is stuck in a lump of old tiller arm:

Manky old tiller arm and its hostage rod end.

I should have ignored the surveyor report and just left the tiller arm well alone: crappy it was, but in a million years it was never going to fail. But… I meddled.

So now I have my new (totally different) tiller arm, which means a lot of hard work to retro fit it:

New Edson Tiller Arm. Totally different size and shape.

But – at least I have a new Rod End!

New Raymarine Autohelm Rod End with ball-joint.