Day 9 The Big Gybe

Synijinsky
Fri 25 Nov 2022 18:23
15:45.8N 048:38.7W
Average speed so far 7.3kts Trip:
1,402nm Wind:
E 4/5 Distance to go: 753nm
After collecting and disposing of 17 flying fish from
the deck (none of them big enough to eat) we decided to Gybe. The first
change of direction for 7 days so a big event for all the crew.
The first job was to furl the Yankee then with Hector on
the foredeck and Stuart at the mast they lowered the pole and disconnected the
starboard spinnaker halyard and stowed the pole. Next we furled the main
sail before gybing it to starboard amidships. The preventer was removed
from the boom and lead around the starboard side and re-attached to the boom
before the boom was sheeted out on the starboard side and the preventer reset to
stop an accidental crash gybe.
Next the pole was rigged using the port spinnaker
halyard as a up-haul (Nijinsky does not have a dedicated up-haul) and the
pole attached to the Yankee sheets on the port side. By now the Yankee had taken
advantage of loose sheets and managed to put a wine glass wrap into the sail
jamming the hydraulic furler. It took some time to figure out how to
fix sort this, but then the Yankee was unfurled to port with Nijinsky
flying off on port gybe towards Barbados and Bequia.
The "sport" of hand steering at night, with two
night watches per crew is starting to tell, so we have sent an
email to the new marina in Barbados at Port St Charles to see if they have a
visitor berth for Tuesday night as ETA (estimated time of arrival)
Barbados is currently around 0900hrs local
time, Tuesday morning. Also in the melting pot is that we want to
arrive in Port Elizabeth in Bequia during daylight and at our current
speed we would not get there much before midnight on Tuesday. Any how it is
nice to starting thinking and planning arrivals but we know a lot can
change still change.
We are back to Chili a la Nijinsky tonight
after the evening crew social sundowner and we have decided to retard the ships
clocks by another hour after dinner taking us on to GMT -3hrs. After more
head scratching we will cover this extra hour by all the crew except
He doing a 20 min wheel turn and then retarding the clock so we
can continue with the same watch
pattern. |