18:28.19S, 160:50.99w
Frenchkissv
Tue 3 Aug 2010 02:30
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Monday Aug 2nd 1700 local time
Everything was rosey until last night. At about 8PM
it was raining, the wind had been dropping, we had shaken out the 3rd and 2nd
reefs and I was thinking of shaking out the 1st when we were hit by a squall.
The headsail was poled out. We furled the head sail but there was an overwind in
the drum which prevented it fully furling. It was flogging wildly. While
trying to sort this the wind suddenly changed direction, we gybed out of control
and snapped the boom in two just at the vang and bent the railing around the
binnacle. It took a while to sort the mess out, lowering the main and lashing it
to the rather sad looking end of boom. This has thrown plans into disarray to
say the least. We have been sailing along just on the headsail but we lack
power and when the wind drops our speed drops dramatically. It will mean an
extra couple of days to get to Niue, and an extra to get to Tonga. I doubt we
will be able to do much before Fiji which will take 4-5 days sailing instead of
an easy 2-3. The good side of it all was that no one was hurt.
Still 520nm to Niue.
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