I regret that you you are right. Nothing’s been the same since Harambe.

Idiocracy is a documentary!

Need to hook the antenna up to an analyzer and make sure it has continuity and no other issues. Manufacturing defects happen, and can be insidious if unable to see them. NanoVNAs are great, and inexpensive.

Depending on solar setup, there might be micro switches putting out awfully loud RFI. For a short time use a suitable battery and see if transmissions improve.

Hmm. Those aside has he isolated feedline continuity and grounding, and antenna?

Power supply noise?

I feel like you’ve probably tried all these, but I don’t have any better ideas.

Packet TTL (not sure if this applies in meshtastic) and local noise floor seem like reasonable things to evaluate.

Put them back.

All good friend! tbh it looks a little like the sailboat was ‘shopped in. There’s something about it which doesn’t look quite right.

Looks to be more like heading up intentionally either to stall or to tack. That they’ve not got the headsail out suggests they’re trying to go slow.