Story - Day 7 to Azores
Kalandia Web Diary
Bill Peach
Thu 2 Jun 2011 08:22
Unlucky or what? At about 0600 GMT and while still dark the jib halyard parted from the sail. Fortunately it was an easy-ish job to get it down. 6 hours earlier it would not have been, as we were passing through a not nice weather system. There are two webbing loops at the top of the sail through which the halyard should be threaded. Bill can only assume that the rigger in the US from whom we bought all new running rig, failed to pass the halyard through both loops. The evidence shows one loop has come apart from the unequal strain. The sail is intact but the halyard end is right up the mast but seems to be accessible should we find dead calm to send someone up there. Bill insists it should be him. I would like to wait until we reach Azores. We have a genoa and a mainsail and an engine after all with plenty of fuel.
Another boat 190 miles north of us has a similar problem - only a man and wife sailing. Weather even worse up there I think. They have engine etc.. and can use those, so we can standby on email. A weather router from Florida put us in touch. This satellite comms is a marvellous thing isn’t it? Expensive, but marvellous.
At the same time as our sail drama Bill found a small injured bird which sadly died very soon after. I will try and identify it from my book. Sun is rising now which is always nice.
Dick can you think of anything funny?
How do you circumcise a whale? You send 4 skin divers down.