One ring to bind them
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Mon 21 Nov 2011 11:56
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25:59.8N 016:14.8W
So there we were, four hours out from Gran Canaria
and screaming along. We managed to recover from our initial embarrassment
of unfurling a twisted spinnaker and we crossed the start line, waving to ARC
people on the committee boat/warship, with our asymmetric flying proudly.
And so it continued, with the wind increasing strength to about 25 knots, at
which point we were averaging about 11 knots and surfing up to 14 knots.
We were actually within 2 miles of Phaedo, one of the fastest boats in the ARC
this year, which had taken a strange course at the start.
Then, with a loud snapping sound our spinnaker
halyard came loose and the sail fluttered down ahead of the boat, at which point
it caught the water and stopped us dead. The next hour was spent with the
crew trying to haul in the sodden sail, which had big pockets of water
trapped inside, and me frustratedly shouting encouragement because I am
forbidden to pull on anything right now.
That meant the halyard knot was still in place and
in fact we could see it poking out of the mast. However, everyone was too
exhausted for anyone to volunteer to go up and retrieve it, so we spent the
night sailing on just our big genoa, which does a reasonable job as a downwind
sail.
This morning Andrea volunteered to go up the
mast, which was very brave of her because she does not like heights and she also
had to do it without the comfort of the spinnaker halyard to use as a
safety line. We did it quite early, at 8am, because the sea was
relatively calm so the mast rocking was not too severe. She still had
to grip quite tightly to spreader and shrouds to avoid being bashed against the
mast, or spun around a shroud and tangled up. It all went without hitch,
but Andrea was understandably a bit wobbly on returning to the deck.
Afterwards she said she was now ready for a bit of the boredom she had been
anticipating on this trip.
Bertie had been on the 2am to 6am watch and wanted
a lot more sleep, so we decided to put up the Parasailor straight away while
everyone was awake. We took a lot of care over it and it went up
flawlessly. Now we just need some more wind, because it is only 12 knots
right now.
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