20.50N 039.35W 16th May 2011
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Mon 16 May 2011 14:46
|
A big day today for us in many
ways.
Firstly we passed the half way point to the
Caribbean at 2.30AM [Mojo2 Time, whatever that is!!]. This is a large milestone
for us because I think we are all now becoming ready to see land again. This leg
of the voyage has now lasted 12 days and over this period the nightime
watches take a toll on you. A couple of nights ago I had 3 hours sleep in total.
You try to catch up during the day but this is difficult to do. I have renewed
respect now for round the world solo yachties. I'm not sure how they can do
it.
Secondly we notched up over 130NM in the period to
9AM this morning. A new record for us and achieved with little stress on either
ourselves or the boat.
Finally to balance the good news!! We snapped our
main halyard today at around 11AM. This is the rope that attaches to the sail
and holds it to the top of the mast. We were in light winds at the time so it
came as a surprise.
I was just setting up to write the blog when the
was a loud crash on the saloon roof. I shot forward to take a look and found
that the huge mainsail was sitting in its lazy bag as though someone had folded
it there carefully. One look to the mast told the story with what was left of
the now shredded halyard flapping around at the masthead. Bugger.
The main halyard line itself shot down on the
inside of the mast and fell back to the deck.
To fix this problem Daniel or I [make that Daniel]
will have to climb the mast to feed through a line down the mast to reach the
end of the halyard and then pull the halyard back to the top of the mast. All
possible but a lttle harder at sea with the boat pitching about.
I have to say Daniel was keen to get up there but
there were some other technical issues that would have made the job harder and I
suggested we wait for calmer conditions or sail all the way to Antigua using
only the two headsails.
We took a deep breath and decided to set both the
geneker and the jib goose-winged out either side of the forestay on see how that
went. this arrangement has been in place now for several hours and we are still
making around 7 knots boat speed. If this holds we may leave the repair until we
make it to the Caribbean.
We are at 20deg.50min North, 039deg 35min West and
have around 1265NM to go to reach Antigua.
Thanks to all for your messages of encouragement.
It is nice to hear some news from the home.
Andrew Partington
|