Sailing from Cape Town to St Helena

Take Off
Jörgen Wennberg
Thu 18 Jan 2018 12:00

Monday morning 8th of January, we are now already 2 days behind the fleet. Carl came back early morning and worked with our auto-pilot all day. It’s here in SA that we first hear of “Jumbie”, the guy / thing / it / whatever who messes up things and you don’t know why. Well Jumbie has been onboard and Carl managed finally in the afternoon to get rid of him and make the auto-pilot work! That same day, at 16.15 we restarted our Leg 15. Happy happy happy! 

  


The beginning was a pretty rough and the waves were worse than over the Indian Ocean. Henrik got really seasick and it took him 2 days to get stable again. As it was pretty windy and we went really fast we took at an early stage reef 1 and even for the night reef 2. Good choice! Our first 24 hrs were crazy! 182 NM, 191 NM… Och vi spirar bom för maximal vindfång.

  


We spend our days schooling & taking brakes as well as…

  


… as playing different chess tournaments. 

    

     


During our Day 3, on time for Henrik to recover and show his McGyver talent, the water maker showed low pressure, even taking in saltwater? During that time we had to be pretty short on water and think over properly how we used it. However Henrik managed to fix it. 



Days pass by and we sail the spinnaker for a few days in a row even at night. Although the wind is blowing at 20 - 25 kn we choose to keep the spinnaker at night and be 2 on each night shift. We have to work hard on the auto-pilot as the wind shifts 30 - 40 degrees! A bit on the edge, however working well and we are advancing pretty fast…. until Night 5, the 12th of January, at 4am (always at night)… PANG!! The halyard to the spinnaker snatched leaving the spinnaker in the water. We mananged to get it back into the boat. Up with the spinnaker again with a new halyard.



Cooking dinner together and also accompanying on each other’s night watches…. Quite quickly we (or rather Alex & Inez) sees something is going on between Louise & Henrik. Being still quite innocent they asked Mummy if they are in love? Mummy didn’t know so she told the kids to pop the question straight to them. Which they did…haha! “Är ni kära i varann?”. The rest is to be followed  ...



HALFWAY celebrated with Champagne & disguise!

    



The night after during Jörgen’s watch, he broached with the spinnaker and the preventer snapped. Louise Wistrand had noticed that the preventer was not properly attached a few days earlier. Everyone on deck (always at night) and Louise x 2 are working hard on the foredeck to take down the spinnaker. Meanwhile, we get to “slängippar”, the first one took the table and the second one took the plotter. Luckily the plotter landed in the cockpit! 

Guess that someone is a bit fed up of the amount of “jumbies” onboard!



So a lot of fixing the day after. 

  

    

   


A few days earlier in the middle of one night (off course) Louise hears knocking noise from the mast. We take down the extra bom on the jibe, but still the noise is there. Then gone. However now, a few days later, the noise is back. Jörgen lifts the “skirt” of the mast in the saloon and down falls pieces of the cushion that protects the mast of the mast hole. Louise x 2 takes down the spinnaker as well as the main sail and Jörgen, Henrik & Louise are working on fitting the cushions back again. But first the mast has to be “lifted” so there is no pressure.

  



After these last reparations we got back to our routines, enjoying the nice weather, steering, taking a brake reading, just relaxing, cooking dinner, playing chess & enjoying the sunset.

    

  

    

    

  

Hoping to see the Green Flash?

    



And Helmer taking care of the nights

            


15th of January

Alex is joining Louise for her night shift from 20h - 23h. At 21.49 UTC we pass the Meridian 0 being Greenwich. 


2 days later on our way in to St Helena, when changing the gas, we get to an extra wind puf and broached again with the spinnaker. This time, the pressure of the broach was so hard that it snapped the steering wire, now 3rd time for us! Down with the spinnaker again and replace the snapped wire. 

     

    


While fixing, having fun on board for a while!

   


Now all is finally set! Back on track sailing into St Helena.