Day 13 - Trouble at Mill
Jacana
David Munro
Fri 23 Jan 2009 12:31
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The night was spent charging along with a good
presure in the big runner, by morning we felt as though we had covered some good
ground, however, by mid morning we knew it was going to be one of those days.
From first light we were storm chasing or rather they were chasing us, we have
learnt from experience that the winds alter in strength and direction with each
squall depending whether the squall approaches from the south or north. The key
thing we have noted is that the winds rarely get above 20 knots and if they do
it's just for a gust or two, it is therefore very important not to have one
of the light weight spinnakers flying when there are squalls about. Big Olive is
rated up to 20 knots and has coped well, when the squall hits we bear off and
run away.
As has been the habit of late we had run downwind
on port gybe during the night, switching to starboard with the dawn. Chris has
found a way to spice up this relatively mundane manoevre by secretly putting the
kettle on before starting. (see attached photo) This inevitably means that the
tense stage of coming up to fill the kite on the new side followed by a big ease
of the sheet is done to the not unstressful sound of a shrieking kettle whistle.
It does also mean tea is up promptly thereafter which Chris believes fully
compensates for any shredded nerves.
At around 8am, the boat rode gracefully down a
wave, hit a velocity header (boat caught up with the sail) collapsing the kite,
before we managed to pull in the sheet we had a wrap! (Spinnaker wrapped around
the headstay) After a short period of tugging on the sheets we decided to Gybe
the boat to rotate the wrap at the top of the mast in the opposite direction.
The helmsman gybed the boat rather quickly resulting in a secondary wrap around
the headstay in the opposite direction - what had started as a quiet morning was
turning into a general free for all. Gradually we manged to unwrap the tangle
and suddenly the kite burst free and was flying once again - disaster - we had
torn a panel during the secondary wrap. Down came Olive and into the repair shop
below, up went big orange as we now had over 20 knots with an approaching
squall. After an extraordinary half an hour searching for the tear, it was
finally located and repaired with spinnaker tape and bagged for future use. A
great debate (still unresolved) then ensued. All of us recall seeing the tear
near the leech (back edge) of the kite before dropping it. However when it was
eventually found the tear was located only three feet from the luff (front
edge). The very unlikely (but only plausible) explanation is that the sail was
flying the wrong way round having been incorrectly tied on before the hoist!
Could that also explain the severity of the wrap which came out of the blue?
Quite possibly, but absence of video evidence means some element of doubt
remains and the guilty cannot be hunted down and punished.
The morning and early afternoon saw us putting up
four out of the five spinnakers we carry, we also spent some time with the
headsail out, all in an attempt to sail a course as the wind backed &
veered, dropped and blew. By late afternoon we had a settled light easterly and
reached into the sun set. Yesterday we had decided that today would be the day
to put up the bimini cover over the steering position to protect us frm the
sun. Paul who has been nominated "Bimini Man" decided that due to
inclement weather, we would delay it for a day - all of us were drenched at some
time by the tropical downpours.
A source of crew discontent has emerged and
resulted in a petition to the captain (see photo). At stake is the posterior
comfort of the "roughie toughie" racing crew during daylight hours when the
"cushions in the cockpit" consession lapses with the sunrise. As we write,
David is considering his response.
We have today passed another milestone, 20 degrees
south - the event called for a celebration and David mixed up another
cocktail, the "Lost Albatross" comprising of a warm, rather sickly, orange
and mango based fruit punch with brandy. Our unreserved appreciation for this
concotion indicates the depths to which our standards of taste have sunk as a
result of deprivation. All of us are likely to represent quite "cheap dates" in
the period following the race.
A communication glitch became evident in the
late afternoon when the satellite phone stopped connecting us to the outside
world. A quick analysis revealed that a new block of minutes, which had been
purchased on Tuesday, had not been credited to the account and we had no pre
paid time left. Since it was "out of hours" no one at the company could do
anything about it. A promised call back to inform us what could be done in the
morning also failed to materialise. If you are reading this blog then the
situation has been resolved.
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