June 10, 2007
Captain's log...
Only 600 more miles to go...light winds that frustrate me, but what can we do? Just go with the flow.
The bummer now is that we are in the counter current. We've loss up to a knot of speed over the ground. The weather according to the Grib files is "going south". For the next several day it's suppose to go less than 10kts and variable. Everyone is grumbling as we hate the "Whap Whap" of the sails against themselves. Some are motoring, but we are resisting the temptation.
Our most recent breakage so far, was the jib halyard shackle opened and dropped the genoa nicely on deck. I heard something strange. Came up to the cockpit from below (Anya was on watch). She heard me say, "Oh, no" then run up to the bow. All the crew on my yelling for help, scrambled to hoist the sail on deck and get all lines out of the water before anything tangled.
Later on, as I thought further, I realized that it turns out the problem with the jib coming down wasn't the snap shackle opening, but rather the shackle joining the jib head to the roller furling swivel. Now, we are unable to roll up the jib. The only fix is to go up the mast and retrieve it. We should still be able to pull down the jib the old fashion way.
I'll will wait for a calm day, or wait until we get anchored to work on this.
First Mate's reaction: Can you imagine climbing up the mast in the middle of the Ocean to install the new shackle? We know two boats that have gone up their masts during their ocean passage, but it still frightens me to imagine John up 60' while underway. And this is fun? Yikes!
Crew Anya's reaction: How did he know that something was wrong? I didn't see any thing, but he heard the sail sound change, and when he came up, he saw the genoa had dropped three feet. He reacted so quickly and knew what to tell us to do. It was an amazing moment. He is an amazing Captain.