Recommenced battle with the Weather Routing software and this time managed to get it working. User error of course albeit aided and abetted by non existent instructions. Still it's all free so I have no complaints.
That took a couple of hours and I would still need to configure the boat parameters (known as a 'Polar') to use it, but that would have to wait. Despite my better night's sleep I was knackered once again and spent the rest of the Watch napping in between checks of the surroundings every 20 minutes. Nothing at all apart from stars in a hazy sky. The new moon was obscured by clouds and the light of the sun.
Later in the day I configured a Polar for Bonny for use with the weather routing software and after a few amendments from Mick we were ready to compute an 'ideal' route to Barbados. All we needed was an updated grib file. Unfortunately even after 1.5 hours Starlink was unable to connect to the internet and we had to give up due to the amount of precious electricity it was consuming!
We moved boat time back one hour today to compensate for our (albeit modest) progress westwards. We're now two hours behind GMT where we'll remain until we reach
The boat's rolling from side to side was clearly too much for the system to cope with. Mick came up with the idea of placing the dish in some sort of gimbal rather than having it attached to the pole I had installed. Initially I thought making a suitable gimbal at sea would be beyond us but Mick had already come up with the bare bones of a design that we could make with bits of rope and string. Between us we came up with a plan for making and installing one in the cockpit. It wouldn't be a permanent installation like the pole, but just something to rig up at sea every time we used Starlink.
One positive step forward - our decommissioning of the small fridge and the lowering of the temperature in the big fridge - enabled us to put more Amps into the batteries than we took out - that is until our failed attempt to achieve an internet connection over Starlink!
Dinner by Mick - pan seared rib of Cabo Verde pork (probably) chops served with sauteed vegetable medley - honest!
Drinks served by the barman in bespoke anti roll beer mats (patents pending)!
No comments:
Post a Comment