Finally, another Update

Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Sun 20 Oct 2013 12:58
12:27.61S 025:03.02W
1213z 20/10
A few days have
passed, been trapped somewhere between sailing, sleeping and working, so sitting
at the laptop hasn't been an attractive, nor particularly high,
priority.
First day (2 days
ago?) was perfect ocean sailing day. Clear skies, smooth seas and quite
consistent 12-18kn ESE wind so with both jibs and still 1 reef in the main we
charged along for 12 hours at 8.5kn avg. It's been strong and stormy since then.
Haven't seen the genoa for a couple of days now so plodding along with staysail
and reefed main in winds varying from 12-25kn and from ENE to SSE, with gusts to
30kn. Although the ground swell still not big, the seas are confused with
significant wind chop on top of the swell coming from multiple
directions.
Have just had to
change course to S as we have a small tear on the leach of the main at the head
of the 2nd reef point. So down to 3 reefs now to hide the tear inside the furl
until conditions become suitable to go up and repair it. And bore off a bit so
the smaller sails can work better and less pounding into the
swells.
So I always thought
that in-mast furling had only one advantage - you save money on a boom bag. But
quickly and easily hiding a torn leach has proved useful in this situation.
Although if we had the m,ain lowered on a halyard the leach would be at deck
level and easily repairable in the lazy jack bag. I do hope we get some calmer
seas and wind soon as we need the extra main, repairing it aloft (it's between
the top and middle spreader) sounds like it'll be a bit of a
bruisathon.
Just had a lone
shark cruising along about 10m off our quarter. Always an eerie feeling. I
noticed all who rushed on deck to have a look didn't have their tethers on - a
good time to stay attached to the boat I would have
thought!
SJB