Stitching sails.....
gale-at-sea
Humphrey Gale
Sat 30 Mar 2013 10:37
Sat 30 Mar
Peter, cruising chute is the Red , blue and white sail, so appropriate photo please
Until yesterday, my sewing skills stretched to 'buttons on shirts' and not much further. A 3 metre rip in the cruising chute the previous night has changed that. We had had one unexpected wind sheer that tipped the boat over unexpectedly during supper. The cruising chute had been out comfortably all day but the wind was getting up and I was bit nervous that the wind may get too strong. However, Andrew chose to keep it out for the night, although with the warning that we may called from ouur beds to take it down if needed. Sure enough at about 9.30 pm, there an all hands on deck call, with the cruising chute noisily flapping away, so lifejackets on and onto the fordeck to get it down. It is dark and after we got it safely stowed we realised the snuffer line had got caught around the radar fixing - sort ot out in the morning was the only solution. Andrew was up the mast next morning to untangle it and discovered a bolt ( of 4) missing from the radar fixing. Not caused by the tangle. However, useful we discovered it, although by chance
Next day, we examined the sail to find the 3m rip, so we set to work with the sail repair kits to fix it. It is our most useful sail on this passage so important that we try to get it back in service. Good progress, and more sewing to be done all day tomorrow with no guarantees that our handiwork will work, but worth the try
Will let you know the outcome in the coming days
Oh... and.... the generator is overheating and out of action till that gets fixed - add to day after tomorrow's to do list! I have kept off the mechanical and electrical problems list but there is always something and every boat on the rally suffer regular problems. For example, on this passage there are 2 boats with spinnaker poles broken / out ot action and one with main boom out of action, due to breakages - and the winds have not been very strong..... and if we got rough weather... In the Carribean sea passage to Panama, 3 boats ended up with mainsal completely out of action due to furling problems. There have been multiple electrical and mechanical problems on all boats -all of which gets solved at each port pof call eventually. Spending this long at sea, living aboard, and undertaking long passages away from convenient well equiped ports of call with good maintenace facilities is not without its daily stresses and challenges!!