Training Day 3
After sailing – I had already packed up everything and was gonna go home – the onboard computer stopped working and something smelled very burned. That was the end of our onboard computer who had served the team many years.
Not ideal for me though as the onboard computer is the base of the equipment for a navigator today. As a sailor you gotta be creative though and that night I worked on a solution to have my personal Windows computer (which is barely anything mire than a tablet with a keyboard attached and doesn’t have any LAN cable port etc.) as the onboard computer the next day. Got that working – all good.
Practice Race Day
The next day was gonna be the practice race at 13:00 but it was so windy in the afternoon that everyone went out sailing in the morning and the practice race was cancelled. We had a big wipe out in one of the gybes but got back in our crew work quickly after that – just being a bit rusty after 9 months of not sailing together I suppose.
When we went in I discovered that I didn’t have any numbers in Expedition anymore and also could not access the CPU’s web interface where I usually calibrate everything. A great sign just one day before the first races – not! It probably didn’t help that the onboard Wifi network was not connecting to the computer or my deck screen anymore and at times didn’t even show up at all.
After switching the power for everything off and back on a couple of times (this usually helps with minor issues as the systems partly reboots itself) it was imminent that there was a bigger issue.
As a navigator there often isn’t really anyone else in the crew who you can ask for help in these situations as you as the navigator are often the most tech-experienced person on the team. You can only ask other navigators from other teams. Luckily my team is very well connected through various other sailing projects and our bow man had just introduced me that morning to the very experienced navigator on our neighbours boat. Thankfully he was happy to have a look and after two (or was it three???) hours we found the issue… Unfortunately it wasn’t good news: The switch between the wifi antenna and the instrument system had a lot of corrosion.
Without that switch – no wifi, without wifi – no deck screen, without deck screen the navigator is useless in this competitive inshore racing. Now picture Villasimius a small town at the Southern end of Sardinia – a few small Bars and Restaurants but if course no electronics store.
segellena 