Back in Falmouth Harbour, Antigua - Why you might ask?

Innamorata
Steve & Carol
Thu 9 May 2013 22:01
17:00.78N 61:46.65W
We set off this morning at 0930 local time having stowed and secured everything on deck and below, we were sailing in 13 knots of wind and had left the bay we were anchored in for the night, sailed SE to clear the headland with reefed Genoa & Main and full staysail. We then tacked onto our course and let the reefed genoa out to full sail as the wind was lighter than expected, after a couple of minutes the genoa began to come down and we thought the halyard had come undone, however the whole sail came down with the head in the water ripping out the luff rope beading! We quickly recovered the sail and headed for Falmouth harbour as we knew there were sail repair shops there. On our return sail it poured with rain giving the boat, us and sails a good wash. We anchored and on first attempt hooked a massive lump of coral which got stuck on the anchor for a while till Steve and Gerry managed to free it, we then had to get the dinghy back in the water etc. to take the sail for repairs! We contacted North Sails here and they said they could repair it by tomorrow afternoon so we have left it with them. The stitching securing the webbing at the head of the sail had failed, the webbing was intact but had been sewn on the outside of the sun-strip (which we had noticed before but not appreciated the significance of) so the stitching had no VU protection and failed like the stitching on the sun-strip had, it also had not been over sewn by hand as is usual to prevent such a failure, we will be showing the pictures to Hyde sails when we return to the UK. The nice men at North sails are going to re-stitch the webbing in the other parts of the sail as well to ensure we don't have problems there on our way home. although it is a disappointment that we are not on our way, we cannot believe how lucky we were that it happened only an hour after we left and not a few days or more into our 3 week passage! The journey home is turning out more expensive than we anticipated!!!
Hopefully leaving Saturday.