Time: 08:20 local
Lat: 36 30
Log: 136 15
Distance from Hawaii: 1450
Distance to Golden Gate: 663.0
27 hour distance made good: 125.2 nautical miles

I am now officially listed as the autopilot jinx. No question.

Today’s report was supposed to be about how we made the transition from electronic autopilot to wind vane without a hitch, how after a couple hours tuning and tweaking I had “Wendy” doing a bang-up job. It was supposed to be about how we now have a straight run in to the Golden Gate, with steady winds forecast.

All that is true.

The only catch is that after about 18 hours of steering along happily, Wendy spontaneously disassembled herself and dropped her paddle into the deep. To prevent this being a disaster, I keep a safety line attached to the paddle. It came apart BELOW the attachment point for the safety line. Sigh. No paddle, no self steering.

So we are now treated to the Adventure of continuous hand steering into San Francisco. Most of the way we expect to be on a beam reach or broad reach, so more or less constant attention to the wheel will be needed. Fortunately a good attitude will prevent this from being too much of an ordeal!