Day 81 - Leg 5 Day 7 at Sea 'Sailing, Disaster and Repairs'
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sun 13 Sep 2015 14:48
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Friday we had a cracking days sailing. The wind
was blowing 25 knots and gusting 30 - 35, but we were downwind sailing at 8+
knots so the apparent wind was quite manageable. Apparent wind is a
combination of boat speed and wind speed so, if you are sailing directly
downwind at 8 knots, and the wind is blowing from behind at 30 knots, this
reduces your apparent wind to 22 knots ie the speed that the wind hits the
boat. If you are sailing directly into the wind at 8 knots, and the
wind is blowing at 30 knots, the apparent wind would be 38 knots.
Same wind speed, same boat speed but 16 knots difference in the wind effect on
the boat. If the wind is blowing at an angle to the boat, it will be a
variation on the theme. This is why we were comfortable sailing
downwind at 25 - 35 knots.
The winds carried on all day, the only problem was
the pretty significant wave height in the 8 - 12 metre range, which made the
boat pretty rocky and rolly. However, at last we we had had the
engine off and were making good progress. Things were starting to look
good.
The following morning, I was woken at 03.00
by Sam asking me to come on deck. What a mess. The wind had
been dying and Paul had wanted to switch headsails from the smaller jib to
the larger genoa. He had put the sail out, but needed to adjust the car
(which affects the setting of the genoa). To cut a long story short, and
avoid embarrassing anybody, by the time I arrived on deck, we had an 80% tear in
the genoa, the radar unit had been ripped off the mast by the sail and hurled
overboard and the loud hailer was dangling from a wire half way up the
mast. There was nothing that we could do until
daylight, so back on with the engine and no radar.
The loss of the radar isn't as serious as it could have
been in other locations. There are no small boats where we are, and
anything over 300 tonnes has to carry AIS. What this does is send
signals out about the vessel, and also receive signals back from other
vessels. We have an AIS transponder and receiver, so we send out
a signal ourselves and receive signals from other vessels which then show up as
a 'target' on our chartplotter. This gives a variety of information,
including name, call sign, size, direction and, most importantly, the CPA
(closest point of approach) to us and what time is the CPA.
At 08.00, we were all on deck to assess the damage and
see what we needed to do. The wind had died and the waves reduced in
size, so it was a good day to crack on with the various jobs needing to be
done. The two most critical tasks were to go up the mast to
remove what was left of the radar bracket and the loud hailer and make sure
that any sharp edges were removed or covered, and then repair the sail.
So, Paul volunteered to go up the mast to do the various
tasks required. An hour later, after a pretty unpleasant and bruising
time, everything was tidied up and we could get on with the other
tasks.
When we are offshore, we take the dinghy off the
davits and put it on the foredeck, so the next job was to
unlash the dinghy and launch it, no easy feat in a still rolly sea. This
would clear the foredeck and give us a good area to work on the sail. We
then dropped the genoa and spent a couple of hours repairing the sail.
While Paul was finishing this off. Ant, Sam and I set about on the other
tasks. By the end of the day, the sail was, hopefully, in a fit state to
be rehoisted, so we set about that, only to find that there was a problem
with the bolt rope, the bit at the front of the sail that attaches it to the
forestay, so down it came again. An hour later, after a very temporary
fix, we gingerly hoisted it again and checked it over. It wasn't pretty,
but the repairs looked to be holding, and we hadn't missed any other
damage.
Rather than test the sail this the evening,
there was very little wind and it was getting dark so we made the decision to
motor overnight and check it out in the morning when we would be able to keep a
close eye on the repairs for the first couple of hours.
The following morning, there was still no wind so, still
under engine, we carried on with the remaining jobs, including 3 lots
of washing. By the end of the day we looked like a Chinese laundry with
washing lines all over the aft deck
The forecast is showing that the wind should pick up
tomorrow, but at the moment there is nothing so we are going to
continue motoring overnight. Unless the winds arrive soon, we will
have to call into St Helena or Ascension to pick up some
fuel.
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