Our passage was uneventful but somewhat marred by unforecast very light winds after the halfway stage when we should have been in good SE trades. This gave the opportunity to fly our cruising chute (a downwind sail, like a spinnaker but without a pole) for the first time in well over a year. Here is is going up from the bow like a long sausage (it’s in a sock which is later pulled up to the top of the mast thus releasing the sail):

 

 

Andbelow it’s flying, though largely hidden by the reefed mainsail. I’m busy tightening the barber hauler, the short red rope running diagonally from the midships cleat to the cruising chute sheet to which it is attached by a snatch block (a pulley whose jaws can be opened to allow it to be attached a line whose ends are not available). The barber hauler is pulling the sheet down so that it does not chafe on the main boom (chafe is the enemy in downwind sailing):

 

 

 

And here is the arrangement of ropes and equipment at the bow, taken as a reference because we’d forgotten some of the detail:

 

 

The calm seas also allowed deployment of our rarely seen hammock, seen here being utilised by Robbie, (soft) drink in hand: