En-route to Vanuatu - now we know why sailors don't leave port on Fridays!
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sun 6 Jul 2014 04:28
When we first left, we put the smaller of the two headsails up as the wind was reasonably strong at about 18 knots. When the wind gets to 20 knots, the main sail needs a reef in and also we would consider changing the big genoa headsail for the smaller gib.
After a while though the wind dropped a bit and we decided to use the larger headsail and crack on a bit. The reason for leaving early was to get in before the wind picked up too much on Tuesday, so sailing slower seemed a bit daft.
After about half an hour though we needed a reef in the headsail as the waves were burying us and the size of the sail meant that we were getting pulled round way too much. It was at this point that the furler stopped working! Electric furlers are great, it is a bit tricky when they don't work. There is a manual method, but this is time consuming and exhausting especially as you only need to do it when the wind is too strong to sail safely! Fortunately, Ivan was on hand to help and between him and I we furled the sail while John tried to steer the boat to help us and try and keep us dry - that failed miserably, we both got an absolute soaking!
Sail now furled away, and we put the smaller headsail up. We were making good time and managing to keep up a steady 7 knot speed. This went on all night until about lunchtime the next day, when John heard a funny noise. When he turned round, the sail had separated from the shackle at the top and was heading down into the sea. We all quickly went forward, hauled the sail back on board and fastened it down. Now we had issues with both headsails!
We did not want to give in yet though. We put the genoa up manually, easier than getting it down and sailed on that until dark. As the wind was forecast to shift and decrease overnight, we furled that sails at dusk and motored through the night. Lucky we did as the wind dropped to 4 knots at times, hopeless for us.
It is now Sunday and we are about 24 hours away from Vanuatu. We got the genoa poled out just before lunch, once the wind had filled in a bit and are now sailing well. We will do the same tonight though and furl the sails at dusk as trying to reef in or furl the headsail at night in the dark in rough seas does not appeal at all. We will hopefully be able to sail again tomorrow on the last stretch before arriving sometime around early to mid afternoon in Tanna, Vanuatu.
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