Well it would be an understatement to say that Saturday was a hard day for us yet amongst to trials were some successes. I'll lead it's the big news - late last night after a mostly good day of spinnaker flying the fitting on our bow sprit that holds the tack line failed. With the tack no longer held at the end of the sprit the load was very quickly transferred to the bow pulpit which is not designed for that purpose. The bolt holding the front starboard side of the pulpit was sheared off at the deck. The other three attachment points were pulled away from the deck and the entire structure tweaked aft. In a word it's a mess. We have some work to do today to reduce water ingress when waves wash over this area (we are NOT sinking). We will be finishing the race using white sails alone. Earlier yesterday we also folded our whisker pole winging out the genoa. With some mcguyvering we were able to cut away the bent part and transfer the end connector to the remaining pole. While now much shorter it should work fine with the blast reacher. This will be our down wind mode once we clear up the bow area. On the lighter side, yesterday morning we had a long series of rain storms come through and some of the crew chose to take a natural shower. As I write this we have 576 miles to the finish and winds appear to be holding steady (finally). If we can keep the boat moving that would put us in late Wednesday or early Thursday. Wish us luck.
Aloha,
Tracy and crew
Oh my! Good luck Tracy! It’s been fun to follow the journey, but now it’s like a suspense novel.😬 hang in there! -Ellen and Ted
ReplyDeleteSounds like a true test of your skills! You’ve got a good team-solving some real challenges. Smooth sailing the rest of the way! Lisa & Pete Gilmore
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