Day 11

Pearl of Persia
Andrew Lock
Fri 29 Mar 2013 23:53
10:19.71S 117:09.20W

Today is our wedding anniversary. Little did I know when I said 'I Do' at
the altar, 33 years later I would be sitting on a sail boat in the middle of
the Pacific celebrating 33 years of wonderful and adventurous marriage, and
three fantastic children to go with it. (Not forgetting the champion
grandson)
It has been an eventful 24 hours here on Pearl Of Persia. Yesterday we flew
our Cruising Chute, a big colourful sail for going down wind, all day, and
made really good progress along the ocean waves. As darkness approached we
decided to leave it flying, as the wind had been constant and we hadn't
needed to make any adjustments all day. However around 9 at night a violent
'Wind Shear' hit us, pushed the boat down on one side and Andrew was calling
'all hands on deck' as we fought to get the sail under control and doused in
the dark. We successfully managed that, but noticed that one of the lines
had caught around the radar reflector and there was a big tear in the sail.
Not really what you want when you are 1500 miles from land. Not much we
could do in the dark, so after a very uncomfortable night of rolling around
as the boat twisted and turned on the big waves, we came to assess the
damage in the morning. First things first, I hoisted Andrew up the mast in
a swaying boat, to untangle the lines, which was interesting. Years of
working out in the gym means that I have the fitness to do that. The next
problem came when we tried to fire up the generator to charge our batteries.
The alarm button for overheating flashed and we believe that the impellor
which provides sea water to cool the pump has broken. Not an easy job to do
at sea in a rolling boat, so that has been put to one side as we try to
repair the torn sail. The rip is around 3 meters long, so out came the
sewing kit for a sail repair, and that is how we spent the day celebrating
our wedding anniversary.