I'm through a tough night, and a very long watch...
the struggle started right before the start of our watch at 1am: we
woke up (from our 3 hour sleep) with the rushing noises the previuos
watch was having. They were struggling with the light weight spinnaker,
and suddenly and finally it caught on the forestay and ha a long tear:(
we helped briefly to carry it down, and they hoisted a heavier one. This
was yet the predicissor of what was to come.
When we took over the watch, the status was pretty tricky, we were
having the wind right behind us (which is called the dead run), which is
exactly what we aimed for to get ahead of the fleet. However, what we
was not calculated was the severe shifts in wind, shifting the spinnaker
from one side to the other like a ghost puppet, giving us very hard time
on the trim and the helm.
Holding the trim was challenging but still ok, however, I cannot claim
the same for the helm. When I was on, I had a wild swing, ended up with
the spinnaker pulling to one side quite far, then to the other side, but
behind the forstay rather than in front of. So here we were, with our
second spinnaker wrapped around the forestay (the line that connects the
bow of the boat to the mast). I left the wheel shievering to our skipper
who was up on the deck as quick as a falshlight.
5 minutes later,we were able to retrieve the spinnaker from the forestay
without harm, and I was back on the wheel for another hour.
However, the night was long, just before we handed the watch over to the
other shift, already exhausted, the mate on the helm had exactly the
same problem as I had, a wild shift in the wind. But this time, to make
things more interesting, the spinnaker first wrapped around the
forestay, then around the innerstay (another wire, that connects the
mast to 1m aft of bow). Here we were, with our second spinnaker
hoisted in double 8s.
Getting the sail down, (it didn't drop as it should when the halyard was
eased, because there were wraps close to the top of the mast as well),
then unwinding it from the innerstay and the forestay, then checking for
holes, finding one and reparing it briefly with sail tape, wrapping
the sail for hoist , then hoisting it back again was a massive struggle
at each step. And already 1.5 hours past our watch time.
The nightmare continued when we realised that there were more holes, and
get it down again. We had to go through every centimeter of the
spinnaker searching for holes to repare later on. That was 2 hours 15
minutes past our watch. We started resting, but withuot much sleep, as
the other watch was now hoisting the windseeker, and it was as busy and
noisy as a fare down at our bunks.
Up for next watch, whihc was another frustrating one: this time, very
light wind, and here we were without any wpinnakers to fly. Slow and
painful, with the realisation that we were loosing much ground to the
other boats, and have lost our position advantage after the tough night.
The sails are sorted now: Katherine has reparied both with a spinnaker
sewing machine. And one is up already
I'm finally off watch, have eaten, winded down a bit after very long 14
hours, with only 1-2 hours of sleep. However, the wind has built up as
we were leaving watch, and probably very heavily now. I can hear the
other watch struggling keeping the spinnaker trim, and the boat
speeding. Hope we'd have no further accidents for the day.
No harm done to the crew, no harm done to the boat, all was
challenging, thrilling and teaching. So all is well:)
Need a bit of sleep now...
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