| Densing fog and snowing, what a weather for 30km (19miles) one way trip to Yyteri for a "company picnic". We were ready to take-off at 10:00AM and by time we took off snow turned into sleet. | |||
| We proceeded quite nicely. Sleet didn't much bother us as we could hide behind the windscreen. Small spray of lubricant to steering torque tube joints really made a difference. Steering was now light enough to be operated easily by just one hand and also the annoying squeaking sound was away. I would have done this much earlier if i just knew it was so effective. I pushed harder for longer period of time than ever before with this craft and we did 33-42km/h (21-26mph) to head wind for the first quarter of our trip. | |||
| We took a turn and did 50km/h (31mph) to semi tail wind and got to wind mills in no time. As we passed windmills there was a dense grey wall ahead of us just beyond the last piers. We were about half way on our trip and we kept going further. We checked the route we were going to use last weekend by car and at that time there was plenty of ice almost everywhere. Inevitably ice situation had changed drastically during the warm week we had. We headed towards open sea. | |||
| As we passed the last two piers i noticed a smell of burning rubber and backed up a throttle a little bit. I thought that pushing it for so long caused belts to slip. I kept the course close to shoreline as we turned to south, going around of place called Kallo. We where on open water, but this was to be expected at this point since large cargo vessels use the same route to get to port of Pori. Just around this cape and we would be back on ice. Sea was calm which was good for us, it was spooky enough as it was. | |||
| As we got to other side we noticed that ice which was there just week ago, wasn't there anymore. I drove to protected bay which had some ice and stopped the craft to evaluate the situation. We checked maps and viewed the weather. I could barely see the cape we were supposed to bypass in order to get to our destination. There was less than 3km (2miles) to that cape, but i didn't want to try my luck more than i already had for the day. We turned back and later found out for the rest of the trip we would have had to do on open water without any hope of getting on ice. The biggest factor in making this decision was smell of burning rubber i smelt earlier. | |||
| We took it back staying close to shoreline. As we were again closing the last piers i again noticed the smell of burning rubber, but not until later at home i realized it was the large freighter docked at port which probably caused that smell and not the belts. | |||
| We couldn't see the large wind mills which works as landmarks to find a bridge. I found a trail we left while on our way to sea and followed that and after awhile mills did appeared from the fog and we found our bridge. Just as we got under the second bridge, a rail road bridge, engine started to loose rpm and i barely made it to thicker ice and stopped the craft. It was time to dry electric. I had prepared for this and i had dry rags with me in a plastic bag. There were drips on spark plug wires, distributor and ignition coil. Drying them helped and we got back in business. | |||
| I had to turn on the trail page in my GPS unit to find the route we used on our way here. There was about 100-150m visibility so i wasn't totally blind but seeing turns ahead helps to prepare for them. "Meter flight" this way was much easier than i first though and fog didn't much slow us. Some places fog was thicker and other places we could see few hundred meters. | |||
| When we got to tail wind section of our return trip i did 47-53km/h (29-33mph) constantly following my own trail on GPS screen. We got back safely and after we had landed to hoverport we made few phone calls to let people know where we were. Then we just quickly covered the engine and left. | |||
| Little bit less than 40km (25miles) was recorder by GPS at average speed close to 40km/h (25mph). All in all it was a good trip even though the goal set for the day was not met. Steering was absolutely perfect this time. It actually had some sensitivity in it, i could feel the side wind and it was easier to turn the steering wheel. And interior noise is much lower now when joints do not squeak. | |||