First job was to clean the rudders and some parts of the hulls. Eileen dived and did a good job....after the cleaning the rudders turned well in each direction and we went out in the bay to calibrate the autopilot again. All systems worked fine and the Raymarine autopilot gave us a "successful calibration" message on the screen. We were set to sail the next morning.

We left Salvador harbour at 11:25 UTC with our tanks full of fuel and water. Our course was set to Recife, a 380 NM sail North along the Brazilian coastline.

All systems worked fine and we had a 15 kts wind on a beam reach once turned onto our projected course. At 17:00 UTC the autopilot started behaving strangely with deviations of more than 30 degrees to the compass course.

At 17:30 UTC at 20 NM from Salvador harbour and 15 NM from the coast, we lost all steering and the rudders got blocked in port position. We deployed the emergency tiller, disconnected the hydraulic rudder system and tried to steer manually....managed to get the rudders straight and after that we totally lost our steering. (Inclusive the emergency tiller steering) Atlantis was drifting towards the rocky coastline.

Another mayday was emitted via the VHF radio and after 15' and maybe 6 calls they responded by asking our position again.....which was repeated 3 times. Despite multiple attempts to communicate with them, they left us without any response or further contact for the rest of our journey.

The only way to steer was by using the 2 motors at low speed, hoping that none of them would fail. While I was steering, (rather driving) Eileen gathered all our documents, passports and some money and prepared for an abandon ship procedure. In case of an engine failure, our plan was to evacuate ship at 0.5 NM from the coast.

The weather conditions were also not helping us as we came into heavy tropical rain storms with limited visibility during the squalls. in the meantime it also became night with the traditional problems to judge distances and objects. In some parts of the entrance of the bay we had to engage the port engine in reverse and the starboard engine in forward, just to compensate for a strong current pushing us back onto land.

At 02:20 UTC we managed to enter the port of Salvador and drop the anchor. Happy to have made it, but exhausted by the concentration and stress related to yet again another emergency survival for Atlantis and her crew.

We are currently waiting for a qualified technician 's verdict on the steering problem and will take it from there.

Note: help yourself when in an emergency in Brazil !!

Marc