Day 14 Busy busy busy. Day 15 Sunbathing Day/Washing Day

Moondancer
Sun 7 Dec 2008 14:07
On Friday evening at about 8 pm our main halyard broke. For those less yachtie, this holds up the main sail, and with 1000 miles to go was quite serious. The problem was not chafing but that our spare halyard/topping lift had jumped off its block and stuck between its block and the main halyard block jamming it.Then when the sail flogging put too much strain on the line it parted between the block and the sail.
 
Our problem was that we had at one stroke lost both our main halyard and spare which was jammed tight. So we went into Friday night under genoa alone.
 
On Saturday morning Andrew said we would have it fixed before lunch. The problem was how to lift the spare halyard back onto its block from its jammed position, working from below. A few ideas were rejected before Andrew's idea of walking the rope round the backstay to the front of the boat, and using the angle of the backstay to work it higher and higher. Eventually it was got into position, and with a lot of working backwards and forwards eased out and the blocks freed. This was a little more complicated than it sounds and took us until noon.
 
So now we had a halyard back and could use the main but had no reserve should we have another problem on the run in. We then decided to use the rope we had recovered to run another one through. First the halyard was stitched into a continuous loop,
 
 
then another rope stitched alongside and the two run back up through the blocks at the top of the mast.
 
 
Several attempts later at 4 pm we hoisted our main again, complete with newly run halyard and the old spare back in place. So then we sat down for lunch!
 
The wind had been kind all day, steady at 12 knots, while we reached under the asymmetric, then gradually died so for the third time we motored though the night.
 
Today Sunday, we had croissants and coffee, then nipped out for the papers, in our dreams. In fact at daybreak the wind gently filled in and we are back reaching towards St Lucia under asymettric and newly cherished mainsail, in calm seas, we are doing chores and the washing bucket is much in evidence.It is also officially a sunbathing day which means we can leave the cockpit without a life jacket, sunbathing with one on does leave very strange tan lines.
 
I went after the elusive tuna again with predictable results,
 
well at least the dorado are getting bigger. I promise no more photos of fish until that tuna is caught.