A frustrating overnight sail. Yesterday we had an enjoyable, albeit slow sail under genoa and poled out staysail. We found that by reefing the genoa a little it didn’t backwind and flap around so much. Occasionally it blew back into place so sharply and with such a crack that the whole boat shook and the forestay wobbled around. I imagined the shock loading on the forestay attachments to be high but have little idea to what extent we should be concerned about this. Anyway, once reefed this stopped happening. The genoa became a similar size to the staysail and the boat felt better balanced. 

By sundown the wind had dropped to less than 10kts and were were making only four knots SOG. We clearly needed more sail out. We weren’t going to fly the cruising chute overnight so the only option was to bring down and stow the staysail, raise the mainsail, lengthen the pole and pole out the genoa to starboard. You may be thrilled to know that I am not going to describe in detail the various actions required to achieve this but sufficient to say that by the time we had also sorted out various entangled lines, crossed halyards and so forth what should have taken around 20 minutes actually took an hour and a half! Quite how a loop of second unrelated line can be drawn through a pulley and jam in place along with the intended line is a mystery that I don’t think I will ever solve.

Overnight the wind didn’t pick up as forecast and as our speed remained between four and five knots I regretted not putting up the full mainsail. The wind did back more to the east so I brought the genoa in from the pole and it just about filled on the same (port) side as the mainsail. Our target is to arrive on Wednesday ahead of the island’s weekly vegetable market on Thursday. An average speed of just under five knots will achieve this and as the wind is going to pick up from Friday we are not under any great pressure. Nevertheless it is still frustrating to be sailing more slowly than we could be.

By the way, raising our mainsail is not quite as straightforward as we would like. The sail has to be facing directly into the wind . Any sideways pressure will ensure that the battens hook under the lazyjacks, preventing the sail from being raised any further. By releasing the main sheet the boom can swing to one side, meaning that the boat itself does not have to be facing into the wind. Nevertheless to get the boat sufficiently into the wind for the sail to be raised usually means using the engine to achieve the required angle. It also may involve going forward to the mast and pulling the sail up by hand as this more easily overcomes the friction introduced by the reefing lines. This means waking up Annie as I had done earlier when gybing the genoa. We have a golden rule that whoever is on watch never leaves the cockpit without the other being aware. Single handed sailors may laugh at this but the risk of one falling overboard while the other sleeps blissfully on is one we are just not prepared to take. So, the need for more speed did not outweigh the disruption that would be caused by raising the mainsail fully.

This morning we did fully raise the mainsail. From the second reef upwards the battens and lazyjacks are not such an issue but you still have to get sufficiently into the wind for the sail to flap and help ease the reefing lines. You would be hard pressed to raise the sail using just the winch without shaking out the reefs (if in place).

Incidentally, lowering or reefing the mainsail is easier and can be achieved quite simply from the cockpit.  I could write a whole post about the mainsail, slab reefing verses in-mast reefing, reefing lines, lazyjacks and so on and thinking about it am amazed not to have done so already. Actually I may have done so already but on the basis that few will have read it

and all, including me, will have forgotten about it I think it will prove to be a good sleep preventer one night on this passage.