4 The dramas that are Ocean sailing

Starcharger
Sun 24 Jun 2018 00:37
"13.24.46S 154.21.64E"
We have now been at sea seven days and at last have consistent wind, no rain and sunshine days followed by star spangled nights....
But we have had our share of "moments". Most notably, screaming along with the code zero flying in 15 knots of breeze with boat speed between 7 and 9 knots....and in the right direction, just perfect!  When all of a side a loud bang and something hits the deck beside us and the boat lurches. Looking up revealed the Code zero hanging away from the mast! Something at the mast head had broken.  We couldn't furl because of lack of luff tension so had to man handle the sail down old style.  A good lesson for the new guys to realise how much power is in the sails, even almost down it was hard to tame.  We found the offending piece, the new U bolt had sheared. We had to resort to hoisting the main, unheard of, that sail is almost new.
Then today a container ship came over the horizon closing on us with a predicted miss of some half mile or less. A quick chat on the VHF and they altered course to give us a mile and a half, perfect. 
No one hurt. Really annoyed about the mast head fitting breaking but nothing we can do till Darwin I suspect, though Cian has volunteered to climb today and have a look.
More to follow no doubt
Fair winds
Alasdair, Pickles, Cian, Maura, Ignacio and Star Charger

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