Day 53 - Leg 4 Day 5 at Sea 'Battens and Vangs'
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sun 16 Aug 2015 12:40
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After the first day, the winds have been very
light. We are probably managing to sail for 75% of the time, but the going
is very slow.
Thursday was my birthday, so Ant baked an upside down
peach cake which went down extremely well. This partially made up for the
fact that a batten in the mainsail broke earlier which, although it won't stop
us from sailing, it is a bit concerning that this is the 3rd batten that we have
had to fix. Also, we will need to wait until Cape Town when Jane is
bringing us out some spares to make the repair.
Friday afternoon we found some oil on the deck under the
vang, and inside the vang itself. The vang is an adjustable
support that goes from the bottom of the mast to the bottom of the boom and
contains a spring loaded gas strut. It serves two purposes:
firstly, when the boom is let out over the side of the boat for downwind
sailing, you can tension the vang which pulls the boom down to give the sail a
better shape; secondly, when mainsail is furled away, (when the sail is out
it holds the boom up), you can release the tension on the vang, the spring
uncoils, and this holds the boom up.
Although we can still tension the vang for sailing, when
we release the tension, it no longer holds the boom,
which suggests that the gas strut may be damaged. This makes it
tricky when we want to furl the mainsail, as the boom wants to collapse on the
bimini, which means that we need to put the topping lift on to hold up the boom,
and a preventer on to hold the boom to the side of the
bimini. This is not an insurmountable problem but, when we were
trying to put a reef in the mainsail at midnight last night with 25 knots of
wind, it was challenging!! There was a tremendous pressure on the
sail and, due to the fact that we couldn't use the vang properly, it didn't furl
as smoothly as it usually does. The problem with the vang may possibly
explain why we have been having trouble with breaking battens.
Anyway, we eventually managed to furl the
mainsail and have been sailing for the past 18
hours with just the genoa. The wind has settled down and we are managing
to make an average of 8 knots, which is a respectable speed in the
conditions.
Ironically, the problem is that we need the wind to die
down so we can unfurl the mainsail to check that it is OK after we last put it
away, and also dismantle the vang to see if we can determine what the problem
is. I mentioned earlier that we had found some oil under, and inside, the
vang. This is puzzling us as the vang is gas filled and there shouldn't be
any oil there. Watch this space!!!
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