It's a broken forestay

'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'
Pete Bernfeld
Wed 22 Sep 2010 18:12
Hauled the Moorings sailmaker up the mast yesterday afternoon and he pretty much confirmed what I thought when I went up yesterday morning. The wire at the top, where it goes into the mast fitting had de-stranded. Also, the bit that attachs to the wire and goes inside the mast fitting was missing, so the question is 'why did it fail, given that sea/wind  conditions haven't been extreme. Maybe not enough tension, allowing too much movment? Not sure. We tried to pull the wire down through the furling foil, but we only managed to pull about one metre through then it jammed on something. Tthis afternoon I'll be going alongside to lower the whole sail/furling gear combination onto the dock, then tomorrow we'll remove the sail from the furling gear and extricate the wire, take measurements and order a new forestay, with necessary fittings, from New Zealand. Opinion is divided over how long this might take, another sailmaker reckoned that delivery from Auckland to here would take about 6/7 days via Fedex, the Moorings think it might take a little longer, but then they don't use Fedex, they have 'their people' hand-carry spares from NZ. Whatever, we were planning on being here for at least three weeks, maybe longer, so in the great scheme of things this isn't a 'temporal disaster', a financial one doubtless, but time-wise OK (hopefully, anyway).
On a more positive note, a local bar was promoting traditional Tongan dancing last night, so Troutbride, Aurora B & Legend 2 went along. Turned out that, yes, there was a display of traditional Tongan dancing, but it was a show being put on by a local school to help fund the kids education. Primary school education in Tonga is free, but secondary school you have to pay, which in this day and age (or any other, frankly) is outrageous. The bar owner and school principal explained that any money donated went straight into a fund which paid out money directly for school fees to the government, so most people there were generous. The dancing was different to Tahitian/French Polynesuian dancing, not as sensuous (if you've watched the facebook videoof the Tahitian dancing  you'll know exactly what I mean) but it was in the main graceful, with intricate hand movements rather than intricate 'bottom movements' (no, bottom not bowel movements :) The kids ranged from pre-teen to maybe 17, male & female, and made up in enthusiasm what they might have lacked in technical skill. A very enjoyable evening.