A Day of highs in more ways than one!
Cat-man-do
Mon 26 Nov 2007 10:28
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It's hapened, this intrepid band of explorers left
our berth in the marina and headed out into the harbour to join all the other
boats geting ready for the start. A hugely impressive sight as 240 ish boats all
milling around in a relatively small area. Brian on his favourite position on
helm, feeling just slightly nervous about so many boats in such a
relatively small area, Robert happily snapping away while Pete and Howard
generally took in the atmosphere.
Parasail prepared and ready to be hoisted when the
starting gun went, and, as usual a slight "cock up" and we failed to hoist when
we wanted. Not to much of a problem and soon sorted and off we went.
Heading down the East side of Gran canaria the wind
picked up and with some 4-5 metre swells we were soon surfing to the giddy
heights of 19.5 knots, a new record for us on this boat. The boat digging in
its' bows lifting it's bottom and surfing down the face of the waves like some
sort of huge surfboard, all very exciting.
As the day grew towards dusk, thoughts turned to
food and some, it has to be said excellent Chicken casserole.
Of course it couldn't last and as the day came to a
close the wind died and the Parasailor decided it wasn't playing without it's
friend the wind and got itself into a bit of mess. It was snuffed and we started
to pull it down and the spinnaker halyard jammed. So basically we have a huge
"sausage" hung from the top the mast and flapping around virtually out of
control. We fought the "flapping sausage" fo a while and then it dawned, there
was only one thing for it, someone had to go up the mast. Brian, being the usual
"masty" type bloke and normally quite happy to be hoisted aloft, but this time,
not so keen, but volunteered anyway. It's very hard to describe to someone who's
not seen it, just how much the top of the mast moves around when a boat's at
sea, but it's not unusual for the top of the mast to be nowhere near over the
boat but be sticking out over the water by a considerable margin as the boat
gets rocked around in the swell, bad enough to go up at anytime but this was
midnight out in the Atlantic, thing suddenly looked a bit sinister.
Anyway Pete on the winch and off he went, on the
one free rope we had. I think the best way to describe it is you remember the
old garden game where you stuck a metal pole in the ground which had a tennis
ball on the end of a bit of string attached to the post, then you (somewhat
aimlessly) batted the ball around and around the post with a friend on the other
side. We became that ball on a bit of string being battered against the
mast wilst trying to cling on with your legs as the bloody thing tried to
throw you off. Brian got half way up and decided that it was just too dangerous
and it would have to wait till morning and sod it. At this point, Pete spun
round in circles very very fast and re-appeared wearing a Superman outfit
and declared "I'm going up" To be be honest, I (Brian) wasn't too happy about
this, 1 because I thought it was damn dangerous and 2 it would be me doing
the winching.
Anyway off he went, with me winching and Rob
still on the foredeck trying to control the rabid sausage. After lots of
shouting and the odd "naughty word" Pete reached the top and managed to free the
offending (offensive) sausage and get it down on the deck, where Rob and Howard
manfully grappled the thing to the gound and shoved it back in it's cage (read,
locker)
Brian lowered Pete back down to deck level and the
ordeal was just about over, well, except for Rob who now decided to start
vomiting everywhere, so he retired to his bed, never to be seen till the
morning. Pete went for a well earned lie down and to count his bruises whilst
Brian remained on a solo watch when Howard was sent off for a bit of
kip.
The wind at least had the courtesy to fill
in about 3am and Brian heaved out the large Genoa and we were off
again. Not exactly at the dizzy exciting speeds of yesterday, but if we're
honest we'd probably had enough excitement for a while.
Still there's no problems now, apart from all the
crew being very tired, but we're all safe and the boat is well (apart from
the "sausage" which is still sulking in it's hole)
As a footnote, we were re-telling the story
over the radio to our chums on Rebel T this morning. They enquired about the
well being of the Parasailor then Peter, in that order.
I rest my case.
More to follow as and when, but hopefully not quite
as dramatic in future
Love
The boys on "Cat" x
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