Nineteenth day out -Things that go bang in the night
I’m really starting to get self conscious about posting about all the things that are going wrong on board but here we go…
Last night on my 9pm – 12am shift I was hand steering as we were wing on wing and accidentally back winded the main and before I could get things sorted out we had blown off the vang again. This time the machine screws had pulled out whereas last time they had sheared out so I guess my fix wasn’t as good as I had thought.
Unfortunately it gets worse. With all hands on deck to remove the vang we managed to back wind the Genoa and with the increased winds we actually folded the whisker pole in half. We have one of those Forespar telescoping poles and on my initial inspection it looks as if it folded where the inner tube was still inside the outer tube as the pole was only extended about 3 feet.
I got out on deck and removed the vang, lashed down the pole, finished my shift and went below, however I didn’t sleep instead I had a fitful rest as every bang and clank I heard I thought something else was going to break.
As per usual in the light of day things were better (everything was still badly broken) but I got us back on course and running dead down wind on our main only. Jean rigged up a temp vang to the mid ship cleat and we have the sail lashed over to port as we make 7 plus knots straight to our waypoint.
Honolulu here we come!
Position update at 1200 local time April 11, 2016:
21 45.619 N
153 11.953 W
151 nautical mile noon to noon run
218 nautical miles to destination
7.5 Kt. SOG
270 COG
You guys are amazing! I just realized I can comment… silly as we have been following along with you each day. We can not wait to see you guys… TOMORROW! What a journey.
Sarah, Micah, Jack & Ollie