Alghero, Sardinia

28^th March 2013

0400 Les takes the first sleep. 
0800 Les takes over and John has a sleep.

We averaged over 7 knots without trying as a result of a great wind for both speed and direction up until now (or, John’s sail trim!) - we then had a wind shift at midday and had to alter course slightly. Then the wind died. Then the wind built up. Then the wind died again..
Grrrrrrrr!
We had only seen two ships since we left Mahon.

Crack!  ..went the gas spring kicker

At 1600 the wind dropped. Being on a broad tack, we were adjusting the sails when we had a problem with the boom-vang (kicker) - it was just NOT pulling the sail down.

John stepped out of the cockpit to see what the problem might be and asked Les to just blip the Boom Vang line button to tighten whilst he watched the boom.
Then we get the awful sound CRACK! - the gas spring on the Boom Vang had broken.
That’s such a rotten noise when you are the one with the finger on the button with 20 tonnes of pulling power!

As it turned out, the three bolts that hold the gas spring to the underside of the Boom must have worked loose and the top of the gas spring slipped along the boom towards the mast until it could go no further. Finally the spring just kept compressing until it gave up!

In practice we could never have pulled the boom down to adjust the sail!

We had had a complete rigging check by rigging specialists just a few weeks earlier (with a certificate!).  As you can imagine this was so disappointing to say the least.  Our brains started to work overtime..

“..so what caused this?”
“..was the backstay too loose after the lifting of the boat?”
“..was the mast going to fall into the sea next?”
“..why wasn’t this picked up during the inspection?”
“..could we have avoided this?”

Following advice and opinion from our friends at Discovery we now feel that the problem was actually the three bolts holding the Boom Vang to the Boom coming loose. We have no idea how or why all three bolts were able to come loose – particularly when you look at the actual installation. No one seems to have any recollection of this ever happening before to anyone.
I do think we could have avoided the damage if we, or the inspector, had of checked these bolts for tightness. Also, we probably could have investigated the lack of ‘pulling down’ a little more carefully – classic case of learning something new everyday, huh.

John is NOT a happy bunny!
The only solution is to have a new gas spring installed and perhaps the rigging re-inspected.

Darkness has come, we are pitching a little in the 1½ meter waves.  
John has dinner while he thinks on the latest catastrophe! 

Gosh! The wind is all over the place!
The wind died again to just under 4 knots and so at 2140 we are back to the engine.
John really hates engines – particularly since he found out that the ‘best’ and ‘less stress’ RPM for our engine is well over 2,200 Revs. (Read noise!)

At 2246 we had a “Gale” warning from our barometer. It has detected too big a drop of air pressure in too short a time for it’s liking. It is a very conservative barometer but we rechecked our weather forecast in the knowledge that we knew heavy weather was due in 24 hours after our expected arrival in Sardinia. We can see rain scrawls a few miles away on the radar.

At 0400 (24 hours after our departure) we can see the twinkling lights of Sardinia and the wind picked up for us. 
Fantastic! We are back to sailing.

Nearer the coast we encountered one of Les’ favorite obstacles – lines of our friends, the familiar lobster pot buoys and fishing boats. Still it keeps you alert!

At 0745 we radio to ‘Marina Di Saint Elmo’ and are consequently welcomed with waving arms from the pontoons showing us just where to moors ‘stern-to’.
Yuck!
The only benefit of ‘Stern-to’ or ‘Bows-to’ mooring as far as I can see is that it is so dumb that it keeps people away from boating! It doesn’t even do a good job of that either as the Mediterranean is still crowded.
I’m reminded of my commitment to get out of the Mediterranean at the end of this season – it’s far too crowded to be enjoyable for us anyway!

I finalized the lines of the mooring ready for the approaching high winds and foul weather. Then, set up our passarelle and we both go back to bed. We are happy that the sail (apart from the gas spring) went to plan, our weather forecasting worked fine and that we are back on our adventure.

It is the low season in the Mediterranean so the Marina Office staff are not on duty for a few days! No internet for at least two days!
Oh! ..and we are on the marina webcam for everyone to see!