It’s been a while since my last post. A lot has happened, none of it good.

While sailing north of Iceland I was hit broadside by a big, but not unusally big, wave. The boat was temporarily thrown off course which the autopliot immediately tried to correct by pushing the rudder all the way to one side. This will sometimes result in a rudder limit alarm indicating the rudder is as far over as it can go, as it did in this case. I canceled the alarm but surprisingly, that apparently disengaged the autopilot (AP). The boat quickly swung off course and out of control, coming to a stop facing the wind. At the time the wind was blowing 25-30 kts and the seas were a rough, short period 2 to 3 meters.  

I’ve dealt with a randomly disengaged AP before in rough seas and high winds. Ususally there is no way to sail back onto the right course so I started the engine to get some speed to turn the boat back. Once I did that, I re-engaged the AP but it wouldn’t hold the course. It started rapidly turning away to port. I also noticed the compass heading for the boat was completely wrong, 80 degrees from what it should have been, and feeding the AP bad information. When I manually tried to turn the boat it wouldn’t respond normally so I also suspected I had a mechanical problem with the rudder that was contributing to my inability to hold a course.

For the next 3 hours I tried to resolve the situation and get going again but nothing I tried worked.  I finally called the Iceland Coast Guard on my satphone and explained that the boat and I were in no danger but I was uncertain if I could continue to navigate in a known direction. They made some contacts and came back by email (via Starlink) and said there was an Iceland research vessel, the Arni Fridriksson, a few hours away that offered to tow me to the port of Husavik where they were headed anyway. The last thing a sailor wants to do is accept a tow, a blatant admission that you’ve failed in your ability to get your boat from A to B under your own power.  I was exhausted and at that point didn’t really see a means of fixing my problems while at sea so I accepted their offer of a tow. The alternative was to bob around at that location for a few days waiting for the sea and wind conditions to calm enough for me to try to hand steer while motoring to get to help in Iceland. That certainly would have taken more time.

They hooked me up around 0600 Thursday morning and I was tied to the visiting boat dock in Husavik at 1600 on Friday.

From there it was a matter of figuring out what had failed to see if it could be fixed. That evening a couple of engineers from the research ship donned drysuits and went under Phywave to check the mechanical integrity of the rudders. Thankfully, no problems were detected so that reduced the problem to electronics and perhaps the AP drive unit. I had an AP drive unit fail before crossing the Atlantic.

The most obvious thing that was wrong was the Precision 9 (P9) electric compass. Tied to the dock, Phywave was pointed almost exactly north but the compass said the heading was 268 degrees. I tried a static calibration of the compass that did nothing. I tried a factory reset of the chartplotter – no change. I concluded the compass must be bad. Fortunately, the Navico dealer in Reykjavik had one in stock so I flew down there to get it, not wanting the delay involved in shipping it. I made the same move when I needed engine parts in Indonesia.

Back at the boat I installed the new compass – no change, still reading around 268 degrees for the heading. So the problem was not a bad compass.

The only thing left to consider was the environment around the compass, that some magnetic or electromagnetic (EM) interference was causing the erroneous reading. I placed my hand bearing compass next to the P9 and it read the correct boat heading so I knew it wasn’t magnetic interference at that location.

I was perplexed.  That compass, in that location, had been solid and correct for the 4 years I’ve sailed Phywave. Nothing around it had changed. How could it suddenly go wrong?

To further investigate, the technical manager at the Navico dealer suggested removing the compass from its mount, connecting it to a long NMEA2000 network cable, and moving it around to see whether EM interference was the culprit. That, in fact, was the problem.  I was able to find a new mounting location for the P9 in the same locker just a few feet from the old location (see photo). In the new location the P9 correctly indicated the boat heading was north.

With an accurate heading from the compass, and no indication of other electronic problems, I left Husavik around 0830 on July 23, almost a week after the whole episode began. I am bound for northern Norway as originally planned, just crossing the Greenwich Meridian as I write this, but with big  questions and concerns about my boat and what I’m doing. It’s a risk assessment question like I had when I abandoned my first attempt to fly solo to Antarctica because I decided the way my plane was equipped and configured made it too risky.

During my solo voyage to 7 continents and around the world I had various equipment failures. In each case I was able to understand why the failure occured and be satisfied that I had properly addressed it. In this case, however, I have no idea why a compass mounting location that had worked for years suddenly became untenable. It makes no sense. Nothing around the compass changed that would introduce EM interference of some sort. But having it happen, I must consider what major new mystery problem might emerge that will bring me to a halt.

I have changed my destination town in northern Norway from Vardø to Hammerfest which is better for a number of practical and weather reasons. It is only a bit farther away from the start of the Russia NSR passage but is much larger, has better facilities, and an airport with scheduled service. It is also situated on the southwest side of Norway’s northern region making it much more convenient than Vardø if I decide to abandon the Arctic circumnavigation and sail south instead. 

I should arrive in Hammerfest on Friday or Saturday.