Here are a few words from Rich Wilson about his progress. “After yesterday’s visit by a Chilean naval patrol aircraft, about an hour ago, we were buzzed by a fighter plane, likely Royal Air Force from Falklands. Blue sky, moderate seas, many albatross early on, now fewer. I was struck by how cold it was last night, with the same northwest wind as we had in the pacific on the approach to Cape Horn. But there, the air was coming from the mid-latitudes of the Pacific, here it is coming down from the Andes, so same wind, vastly different temperature. Have contemplated wiring together the two wind wands at the top of the mast. One has windspeed, but no direction, the other, I thought, had direction but no windspeed. By cross wiring data feeds, we could get both. Before tackling, decided to check to make sure we actually had wind angle on the secondary, and, it turns out, no, so whole plan is off. Means I have to continue to look at windex at top of mast to get angle of apparent wind, cannot have the pilot steer by anything except compass. I have a spare wand, but problem is, don’t know it perhaps the problem is the cable, so if I tried to get all the way to the top of the mast, and install a new wand, ti might not make any difference, for that risk. Contemplated stopping in lee of Falklands. We’ll see, but frankly I doubt it for tonight/tomorrow. We’ve been without since last east Pacific ice gate, and it definitely makes the sailing harder and slower and less efficient, and harder to sleep, but we’ve made it this far, so maybe we have to go the rest of the way this way. Have some serious computer glitches that are only solved by frequent rebooting. How did we ever get a worm virus into the computer via the satellite system, what a pain, and hope that I don’t have to go to the backup laptop.”
