The good news is, the winds have been great and we've been moving. Winds have been 20-25 knots. I think we were on track for our 200-mile day, but I guess it was too good to be true. We had a couple of squalls through the night. At 4:00am in the morning, the squall brought some strong winds that shifted to our nose.
Somehow, the pulley at the top of the mast had broken, the cars have jumped the track, and the rope has chaffed through. Hard to say which happened first, but the mast nicely lowered and self stacked into the cover. So we sailed with the Genoa for a few hours waiting for daylight.
At daylight, Cassidy went up the mast. We turned downwind, started a motor, to try to smooth it out a little for her. But we were still moving! We hoisted her up and she slipped the cars back into the mast. Courage came up with the plan to use the boom lift to raise the main, so once the cars were in, we hoisted the main. Courage laid down for a nap after a long night. Another squall was coming and I'd turned up to 40 degrees downwind (totally off course) to keep the wind at about 90 degrees to the boat. It was only about an hour since we'd raised the main when BOOM! The boom hit the aluminum cockpit cover and the main was raveling its way down the lazy jacks back into the sail cover again. So I woke Courage to let him know. Apparently the boom lift line had chaffed all the way through. There was another spot that was chaffing also, so it was going to give one way or another. I was glad we had the cockpit cover or the boom would have come down another 2 feet and hit our roof.
Fortunately we had one more line coming up out of the top of the mast. So this time we hoisted Courage up. He had rigged up a new pulley from one that was designed to be deck mounted. He ran an external rope up so that it would not chafe on the mast. During this we were pointed downwind, but we were rocking.
Our 33 gallon drum that we collect rainwater in was about 2/3 full and slipped and fell from in front of the steering wheel to the cockpit floor causing a loud crash and water splashing all over, including up to the bananas. It landed upright fortunately, but everything was wet and our table was displaced. That was a lot of weight to knock down. We then hoisted the main back up, but this time with a reef.
Our speed is back up and we are off again for the day. We shall see. We have 2 friends on catamarans in radio range of us, so we are in good shape. One boat, Paje, is running a double reef. They can't run a jib when they are reefed, I don't understand quite why, but they were keeping pace with us when we had our main sail down and only the Genoa up. We could see them on the horizon. Field Trip has an AIS signal, so we could see them on the GPS. They are about 11 miles away. They shredded their light wind sail yesterday they said, and their mainsail had issues on the passage to the Marquesas with their cars and bearings. So they too are reefed at a double reef. We have been tracking along side them most of today. When our main is down, they take the lead; when it's up, we catch up slowly. Currently we appear to be side by side on the GPS, but I can't see them. We lost Paje on our last sail repair and they don't transmit AIS, but they are likely still in radio range somewhere. We've chatted with both of them today, but there's not much we can do for each other's sail issues. We will all limp along and likely have a sail improvement party upon our arrival in the Tuamutos.
The Tuamutos are a little tricky in that the islands are reefs. There can be strong currents and narrow entrances. We are heading to the one with the easiest entrance, thinking this is a great time and place to arrive. After this, we can become familiar with the tides and time our arrival to slack tide at the next island easier. Harder to time the arrival after a 500 mile passage, especially with strong winds, but sail issues. Hard to anticipate when you'll arrive. All 3 of us catamarans were heading to different islands, but are up in the air a little bit depending on our time of arrival, if it's morning, we can make our way, but if it's evening, we either heave to (drift and wait at a safe distance from the islands until morning) or get into the nearest island and go where we'd like later.
We are moving nicely for now, so hopefully we arrive in the morning of Intrepid's birthday, May 29. Not sure how the Delorme path looks, but we were looking at our GPS track and it's not so straight. Lots of turning downwind to go up the mast and sail adjustments, etc. Also, turning to go along with a squall to minimize its impact (without complete success).
For now, the seas seem to calm in the afternoon, yesterday and today, so we are at 15-18 knots of wind and moving at 7-8 knots which is nice without being rough. I think we should just stick with this.
I just spotted a boat on the horizon!! Paje?? They should be long gone. I'm heading out with binoculars . . .
Shannon
No comments:
Post a Comment