That's a wrap, then!

Serendipity
David Caukill
Sun 24 May 2015 13:33

Friday 22 May,  2015

North Atlantic Ocean 29 56.7N  70 23.8W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: BST -5.0; UTC -4.0)

 

It’s funny how some words have multiple meanings.   “Wrap“ is both a noun and a verb and in sailing on Serendipity   the noun itself  has at least two uses.

 

Wrap 1.  commonly refers to a tortilla or other unleavened bread that we often used for lunch as a change from bread rolls or sandwiches. It I easy to make and easy to handle with one hand.

 

Wrap 2   occurs very infrequently. It  is not so easy to make and once made not so easy to handle. I am referring to the hourglass shaped twist in a spinnaker or cruising chute caused by it collapsing in light airs and then twisting as  the wind catches it from behind.  They are hard to undo –  you risk damaging the sail in the process -  and many sailors are chary of using light weather sails – with good reason it now seems.

 

We have wrap 1s for lunch several times each week.  Wrap 2s are much less common – in fact it is probably 2 years since we had one – I have always believed that that is in part because the furled staysail acts as a barrier – or at least a deterrent - to its occurrence.  However, but earlier today we had a Wrap 2 in spades as the chute (the Frog) contrived to wrap itself around the furled staysail itself. 

 

It took about an hour of motoring in circles to free the frog from the  staysail, but the hourglass wrap remained. Rather than to continue to motor round in circles – which would be the conventional approach to clearing it –(I was concerned that to do so would cause the sail to wrap itself around the staysail furler again)  so we decided to take the sail down and ‘unwrap’ it on deck.

 

That’s was the first mistake – the second was to be unconcerned when the foot of the sail caught the water. As we continued the lower the sail it went further into the water –  still attached to the boat by its three corners (the third and crucial mistake) acting as a sea brake.  To cut a long story short, the pressure of the water “blew out” the sail – which is now in tatters, quite possibly beyond practical repair.     

 

There is a sail maker in Bermuda but Monday is a Public Holiday – so it will not be until Tuesday that we have a damage assessment.

 

Finally, it is still getting cooler at night.  No one yet admits to thermals, but I have seen the odd polo neck replacing a t-shirt at night!