Day 6 - Maintenance to do
Bonkers
Donald Macdonald
Mon 13 May 2024 21:10
After sending yesterdays update the wind died and we motored for a few hours (6). As night fell lightning could be seen all around us, could see it, not hear it.
As the night went on the wind came in and we were sailing again at a reasonable speed, infrequently 8 knots. As morning came wind slowly changed direction so freeing the angle. As the morning watch progressed it rained, hard and wind up to 30 knots, then died to 2-3 with big sea and then wind did a 360. Sometime during that time with all the sail trim changes and direction changes the 2nd mainsail car from the bottom was all ripped. 1st reef went in to protect the sail. 1742nm to go.
This afternoon after inspection of the damage and thinking of repairs with what we have onboard, the main was dropped to the deck so both sides and around the car a single piece of sticky backed sail repair material applied then a tape strap sewn across the repair threaded through the sail car. I have never used the 'speedy stitcher' before for sewing but does appear to do a good job. Repair took 2.5 hours. We hope the repair will last until the Azores and then can be fixed properly. If the repair fails we will have a single reef in all the time which this morning was rubbish in the light winds as only get to do about a third of the speed of a full main.
The afternoon repair should have been my off watch, with the blog and cooking to be done no rest until after 1st evening watch.
A couple of nights ago we had AIS alarms going off for Buoys 5, 6 & 7. They come up as ships on the chartplotter. The informationwe get of them from the plotter says they are 10x6 meters so something to worry about. They are not lit and even when within 20 meters of them with torch searching for them very difficult to see, they have very small bots of reflective tape on them. Their size is more like 60-80cm diameter and maybe a meter high.
Dinner this evening hopefully beef casserole, cheese, sliced bread and mandarins in juice