39:15.34N 3:0.53E Arriving in Mallorca
The Snark on The ARC
Ben Little
Sun 30 Aug 2009 00:41
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Well we still have a few hours to run, but as Pete
has gone below for some much deserved shut eye, I thought I would get a quick
blog entry down and hope that it gets posted some time tomorrow if I can find an
internet cafe. I understand there have been some issues with
uploading my lasts few entries, not sure why, will check in and re post when I
get a moment.
Anyway and update on progress since last
time:
Pete awoke this morning at the end of my night
shift to calls for assistance from deck. As per forecast (very accurate)
we had quite good wind this AM and in fact for the whole day, some might say too
much wind but in fact the issue we had today was the heavy seas. As I put
my Pc to bed I was feeling a bit queasy, it soon passed with a return on deck
but I took a tablet just in case. Sure enough it proved a wise
decision as the seas continued to build throughout the day to the largest I have
sailed in the med, in the trough the waves towered over the heads of us standing
on the deck so 5+ metres I would say top to bottom.
Anyway back to my call for help. Coleen is
familiar with the failure of lazy jacks and we had another (note to self, should
have replaced the whole lot in Croatia), while not a big issue it makes
for a lot of work when reefing and putting the sail away especially on a
pitching deck with a short handed crew. With the wind getting up I was
getting ready to make sail as dawn broke and I noticed that the main halyard had
come free from its usual position. I was going to fix it but thought well
I am going to hoist it now in any case so I did not and in a gust the main
started to run up the mast and against the port side lazy jack lines which gave
way (needed replacement anyway I guess), dumping the sail on deck. Pete
and I quickly had the problem under control with the main up and the Genoa out
we were making 9 knots which continued all day. But there is a lot of tidy
up to do. We were both very tired today after little sleep but the sailing
was challenging as the wave action was relentless and continued building
throughout the morning to a peak in early afternoon. The wind built from
early 12-15Knots to 15-20Knots by late morning and we had a first reef in the
main and reduced genoa but still making constant 9+ knots despite a conservative
sail plan. The seas were so rough though that this was the most we
felt comfortable with and we even considered the second reef (biggest gust
23kn). But still with our speed approaching double figures ( we
registered 12 Kn of boat speed at one point) and consistently more than 9 we
thought we were doing great.
Thankfully the wind and seas abated in the evening
(also the speed) and we were keen to get to port, so we hoisted our
spinnaker. I have to confess the other motivation was the appearance of a
sail on the horizon which while it did not seem to be getting bigger was
certainly giving chase. Once the sail was up our 9 Knots or at least
8 -9 Knots was back on the dial. The other sail slipped quickly back under
the horizon and we were satisfied that we had scalped another, however the wind
continued to drop off and we felt that in the interests of time (and our sanity)
we should not wait and motor for the last few hours if we had to. All
well and good but getting the spinnaker down proved no easy task, our
extensive use of the sail in the last week and the wave action we had suffered
has clearly led to some halyard chafe and we were unable to get the sail down
(the halyard core was coming down but the surface was stripping off causing
jamming at the mast head). At least it was in the sock! The only
option we could see was to go up the mast, but how, we still had the main up and
with no other halyard to hand we had to drop that first before I could do my
mast monkey routine. .... No lazy jacks, not enough hands sails on deck,
you get the picture. Exhausted half an hour later I began my ascent.
Halyard chaffe is one thing but I can name several other types of Chafe I
encountered on the way up. Both Pete and I were exhausted and my nads very
sore, but we got the sail down. Drama over we are not on the last stage of
motoring along the Mallorcan coast.
I discovered late last night that our GPS systems
does not provide charts for 50% of the Balearic islands, it will get you there
but no details, luckily I have my trusty harbour guide which has shown us
the lights to look for and confirmed the waypoints we were looking at. I
doubt anyone from Viva Charter will be expecting us at this late hour but I did
text to warn them we were on the way so hopefully our arrival on the dock
tomorrow will be a welcome one.
list of fixes for tomorrow (and monday) is
prepared, I hope Pete can manage to winch me up the mast one more time as I do
need to get the lazy jacks fixed and new halyards in place.
So after covering (according to the log?? rather
than the GPS I think) almost exactly 900 Nautical Miles this week with Pete we
are finally here. Quite an experience for both of us. Pete I fear
may need a holiday to recover! We averaged 7.3 Knots (again from the
log) across both engine and sailing and we were on route every night but
one. I regret that we did not get a chance to visit Sardinia or even
Sicily properly, perhaps on another visit.
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