Down to go up
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Thu 17 Dec 2009 13:57
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On Monday 14th we left our anchorage in Barbuda
where a few of the more adventurous boats from the BlueWater rally had by now
joined us. In order to get our furling gear repaired we had to return to
Falmouth Harbour and we are now at 17:01.26N 061:46.55W -
again...
Our sail down was 50 miles to windward and we
sailed or occasionally motorsailed all the way (remember while we had a mainsail it was bagged on the deck) and were
able to crack right off the wind for the last 10 miles or so but that finally
became dead down wind again so we motored for the final 4 or 5 miles. We caught
1 and a half fish on the way down. Both were Tunny and were very tasty. Not that
we know, because the first one is still in the freezer and the second and larger
fish was bit in half by, we think, a Baracuda as we were reeling him in, and
therefor we presume he finds Tunny very tasty.
My "bandages" on the mast holding the furling foil
hard against the slot in the mast seemed to be effective and held up for the
journey. Most of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent
working on the broken furling gear and the deamaged parts have now
been extracted and new ones are on the way. During the repairs a local Antiguan
guy from Antigua Rigging was working with me on the job. He was very pleasant
and methodical in what he was doing and clearly had much more of a story to tell
than he was giving away, being a little quet and understated. Anyway as I got
chatting to him and got him talking it was amazing the experience he had.
While I was working on our gear he was mainly working on "Liara" along the
dock from us. At 100ft + she is a large boat - but not this week in Falmouth
harbour! You see while we were in Antigua, the Yacht Charter show was on in
Falmouth harbour, and while we thought we had a big boat ....... humiliating!
All the worlds superyachts are parked all around us here and it is just
amazing to see them all.
However, back to Shaun the rigger. He told me that
he was a very keen sailor and sailed Lasers right up to and including the
"Worlds" and the only thing he had not done was the Olympics! He had done a
Fastnet, he regularly raced with Richard Mathews of Oyster fame and was
sometimes helm though mostly mast or foredeck man. He has worked on Maltese
Falcon and Mirabella IV with her 294ft mast, which is right here in the bay
anchored up!
For all those sailors out there I thought you might
find this fact relayed to me by Shaun interesting. When he went up the mast of
Mirabella he went up the first 150 foot INSIDE the mast in a type of elevator.
At about 150foot he climbed out of the mast and then onto a halyard. But,
here's the reason why: normally when we are being hauled up the mast, it is just
that; we being hauled UP, because we have some weight. However if the weight of
the halyard on the other side of the halyard turning block at the top of the
mast is very much heavier than the weight of the person and the halyard on the
out side of the mast the person being hauled up will shoot up to the top of the
mast because of the weight of the halyard inside the mast. Are you following?
Think it through and then when you are ready we will continue........... OK. So
to haul somebody up the mast in fact in this example you have to attach a
lighter downhaul line to the person once they step out of the mast elevator onto
the halyard and EASE THEM UP! the mast. Now you can see why our 90ft mast is
giving me a severe inferiority
complex!
We hope to be underway by Saturday, but knowing how
these things go, a Monday departure would not surprise me - a wasted week. We
have a 200 mile sail to get in before getting to the Virgin Islands where
we are going to spend Christmas and New Year. Christmas, we will spend alone as
a family, and New Year with our friends the McBride family from Ireland.
Having a spare day today while waiting for parts,
we will go on a shopping expedition to St John's. I can feel the sense of humour
deficiency decending already....
On a more serious note my thoughs are now turning
to the very significant challenges that lay ahead for us in this adventure.
These are the challenges of keeping body and soul along with boat together,
the admin required to enter into some countries and the Panama
Canal transit. But overshadowing everything and never far from our
minds are the security threats we face and how to deal with
them.
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