Las Palmas towards St Lucia - into week 3
Tamarisk
Wed 7 Dec 2005 13:05
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Tamarisk Web Diary Wed 7th December
At last - we've less than a thousand miles to go.
We got down to triple figures in the early hours of this morning.
Less happily, we're having to slow down after a
bolt broke in part of the rigging. It's the bolt that holds down the starboard
aft lower shroud. There are two bolts. One is holding fast. We've wired the
shroud onto the nearby midships cleat and backed it all up with the spare jib
halyard. It all looks pretty robust but we're still going to reduce sail
area to avoid unnecessary stress. It was gusting 25 last night and showed no
sign of further problems.
It happened just after we'd put in a reef for the
night and were settling down for supper. The bolt that's sheared looks as if it
might have been partly gone before.
A similar problem happened to our friends on
Windharp when they did this trip a few years ago. There are plenty more
wires holding the mast up.
We also caught a fishing net round the tow
generator that took some clearing. Later, we found the tow generator had lost
one of its blades. If that was a fish, it must have been a big one. We've fitted
the spare.
We had a half-way party a couple of days ago. Penny
made pancakes. We're now getting visits from Tropic Birds with fabulous
long spikey tails. It's still very hot. Some of the biggest boats have
finished. The winds aren't giving us much more than five knots but we still
hope to get in around Wednesday 14th. There are still a few boats behind
us.
Anna and Eddie being very patient. Same can't
quite be said for the rest of the crew.
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