Last night we got a voice message from Annasley that was less than encouraging.
Her autohelm had broken down.
The autohelm unit is a link between her chart plotter, and her rudder. It works out where Annasley is trying to get to from the chart plotter and then automatically makes lots of fine movements to the rudder to allow her to get there. This allows Annasley to focus on the actual rowing.
Annasley has a non-electrical back up, for every electrical element on the boat – a manual watermaker, a manual compass, etc, and this includes manual steering. So whilst it’s not the end of the world, if she can’t get it fixed it will make progress much slower between now and the end of the crossing.
In this video she is thankful to @duncroy1 from @theoceanrowingacademy for all his support, but also to @rowaurora and her sea school for teaching her the ocean rowing courses, and finally to @rannochadventure for their electrical course, and their excellent ongoing telephone support during this issue.
At the time of this call, she has not been able to fix the issue, but will continue working on the issues with the team. Fingers crossed she can find a fix!
