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.