Could you post all this on your site?? My brave Brother in Law, Tim Kent, is doing the "Around Alone" race....around the world in a 50' Open class sailboat, by himself. AroundAlone.com He is having some problems with the autopilots I have thrown the other stuff in with it for interest. Of course it is hard to sleep without an Autopilot, and sleep is crucial to our well being. Anybody out there ever had this kind of problem? Read his description below. His web site is: Everesthorizontal.com because this is equavalent to climbing Mount Everest, just horizontal. He also needs sponsors...with the least sponsors of anyone in the race, he finished 3rd on the leg to England from the New York Harbor start. He is on the way to Cape Town. Really interesting information to follow. Joe -----Original Message----- From: Everest Horizontal [mailto:lboits@netnitco.net] Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 1:14 PM To: "Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@mailbox.hp.com Subject: EVEREST HORIZONTAL Upate - Halloween 26.10.06n 16.06.49w I grew up in the Detroit area suburbs, and on the night before Halloween, which we called Devil's Night, we kids would all sneak around the neighborhood, ring doorbells, soap windows and throw toilet paper at houses. The big kids in the tough neighborhoods in Detroit ran around and tried to burn the city to the ground. Devil's Night is a thing of the past, but I got my own version of it out here last night. I haven't said anything about this in the hope that it would go away, but it is not - the autopilots are doing exactly the same thing on this leg that they did in the last. In any reaching situation in wind over ten knots, the boat wanders through more than EIGHTY degrees - over forty either side of the set course. The results are unpredictable at best, disasterous at worst. Last night as I was celebrating the return of some decent breeze on the beam, the boat started doing its dance again. On the third crash gybe, I decided to gybe the boat on purpose and started to furl the Code 0, which I do every time I gybe. Suddenly, the line holding the tack of the Code 0 pulled itself out of its core, and suddenly I had the biggest genoa on the boat loose and flogging around. By the time I had gotten to it, the furler's tack line had wrapped itself around the furler seven or eight times. I took the mangled tack line back to a snatch block at the mast and used the halyard winch to draw it back to the bowsprit loosely, then went forward to unwrap the thing. That done, I drew the tack line and halyards tight and went back to furl the Code 0 the rest of the way. All this time the wind was building a bit, and the sail was not furling up properly, so that when it was done, the top of the sail was not properly furled. Unfurling it in building wind at 2:00 am was not an option, so I decided to take the partially furled sail down and get it below. The Code 0 comes down with its furling unit, so you can imagine the steps required on a pitching deck in the dark in about 15 knots of wind - alone. It's the "partially furled" part that made the process the most interesting. It took about half an hour. Once put away, I rolled out the genoa and tried to get some sleep. We were still wandering 30 to 40 degrees, so sleep is not easy, but I got some rest. We are through the Canaries. I went between Grand Canary and Fuerteventura last night. It was very hazy as I approached the islands and dark as I went through them, so I missed seeing what I understand are some of the prettiest islands in the Atlantic. Once through, I gybed (above) out to get some distance off the shore. I will shortly gybe back to head south again. Kojiro Shiraishi has rocketed up into second place out west. Brad and the rest of us are pinned in by the coast of Africa. I was so close to Derrick at one of the position reports that I picked up the VHF and called him. To my delight he answered and we talked several times last night. We talked about the general concern in Class 2 about the amount of time we will have in Cape Town. The schedule is such that I would need to arrive there one month from today in order to have just a week to prepare for the Southern Ocean. One month to cover 6000 miles is asking a lot, especially with doldrums as part of the picture. I have two priorities in Cape Town. Prepare the boat for the first Southern Ocean leg, the biggest test yet. And prepare myself mentally for the Southern Ocean, which includes spending a week with my children, whom I have not seen since September 15th - it will be at least December 1st before I see them in Cape Twon. We are currently ticket shopping for Whitney and Alison, but need to figure out when I am going to be leaving - and arriving - before doing anything about it. It's a big issue for all of the Class 2 boats. Well, I have sent off my frantic e-mail to the people at the manufacturer of the autopilots asking for help with the various programming adjustments that can be made to the pilots - I will now wait until they get to work and see if we can give this thing a sedative. Have a Happy Halloween! 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