Kit failure at the ‘pointy end’

Although the rest of the crew enjoy the moon for their watches, it is long gone by my watch so I could not spot the problem until the first light of dawn. The first ‘giveaway’ was a slack luff on the starboard Yankee then I could see that the bow sprit was canted at an awkward angle – something was wrong. This gave me a good excuse to ‘beat to quarters’ and knocking on everyone’s door, I soon had a full crew on deck ready to take on all comers. The drop nose pin through the bowsprit bracket had worked out (this has happened to me before and I should have known better !!!!!) and this had bent the bracket so that it wouldn’t re-attach. Some smart work with 12mm studding, washers and nuts forced the bracket back into useable shape – phew. I have now ‘moused’ the drop nose with cable ties – I clearly should have done this before!

This meant that we could set the Parasailor for the first time on this passage having resisted the temptation before because of the wind strength. Unfortunately Hejira doesn’t sail as well on a broad reach with her standard rig and staysail which doesn’t help with the wind behind the beam and this is partly why the fleet has ‘got away’. Now with the Parasailor she lifts her skirts and romps along but whatever gains we make during the day we lose at night when we have always tended to reduce sail. Hmmmm, dilemma!

We utilise the radar at night to try to identify any discarded shipping containers (Robert Redford!) and we also activate the ‘rain gain’ so we should be able to detect any squalls creeping up on us in the dark. After much discussion and the planning of ‘what if’ scenarios, we agreed to keep the ‘big boy’ deployed through the night and monitor the situation closely. The new instrument suite has a very good auto steering system and we programmed this to steer to a wind angle rather than a course so, as the wind direction fluctuates, our course changes to maintain the same sailing aspect. Thankfully there were no squalls which would have required ‘all hands on deck’ and we ploughed on through the night with the fabulously forgiving sail needing no adjustment at all. Our 24 hour mileages since Mindelo after our (rather too) timid start have been 132, 135, 152, 152 then after only 8 hours of it under the Parasailor, 164. The other advantage of flying the Parasailor on its own as we do, with no pole is that we minimise chafe, all the lines pass over large diameter blocks whereas on the preceding few days using poles, we detected some chafe damage.

The St. Lucia time zone is UTC -4 (whatever was wrong with Greenwich Mean Time – I imagine it fell-foul of the EU PC Brigade) so we have made our first crossing time adjustment and we are now at UTC -2 – so there.

 

Stephen writes:-

Having been beaten to quarters at first light by the Master I feared the worst. What had we done wrong now? What fiendish punishment had he dreamt up for us? (swimming with sharks no doubt ). However it was a kit failure at the pointy end (ok Skipper, I know it`s the bow nowadays). Team Hejira leapt into action and with some on-board engineering by Barry and the Master all was mended and we were ship shape again in no time at all. Unfortunately I was visited by Madam Mal de Mer so had to retreat to my berth and change patches (I had exceeded the 3 days  recommended so mea culpa) hence  my contribution to yesterday`s blog was somewhat limited as you no doubt noted. After a few hours’ sleep I felt a lot better but by then the rest of the crew had flown the Parasailor so for the rest of the day I had to play catch up. There have been no shark sightings today but we did spot some Little Shearwaters (Puffinus assimilis) whom seemed to be hunting flying fish in flight. I am pleased to report the score in the fishing challenge was Hejira 1 Fish 0 as we landed a Yellow Finned Tuna (Thunnus albacores ) on a yellow rubber squid lure which I made under strict supervision from the Master .The tuna (which we will enjoy for lunch) was caught as dusk was falling so we will concentrate our fishing to dawn and dusk from now on. Barry came up trumps with our evening repast and today the Master has promised us much more than Hard tack and a slap so things are looking up. The night watch was uneventful under a bright moon with no vessels in sight even though my eyes were playing tricks with me as I saw non-existent lights on the horizon every so often .I raised the Master from his pit at the allotted time and retreated to my berth.

Two of the crew were victims of Mal de Mer but making a full recovery. The Master and Barry remain in rude health.

Bob writes:-

I too had not renewed the ‘patch’, so began to feel queasy, probably with the different motion under Parasailor. A good night’s rest, (sorry, Doc, for having to stand watch without the inane conversation that prevails usually), and a new patch and I am close to normal now. Mind you, what passes for normal on the yacht at this stage is anybody’s guess!

The Parasailor is a huge success and requires little trimming, so we are even more indolent than usual!

Barry is exhausted after slaving in the cauldron of a galley last night cooking us an excellent meal.

Nick