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American Spirit II - Day 273; Crisis in the Indian Ocean - Day 1 of 11; Sunday, October 5, 2014



'Day 1 of 11' means that it will take us 11 days to get to Mauritius; and until we're tied up at the dock there our mast can come down at any time.

Up at 6:00 AM. Relieved Jeremy, who said he had a good 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM watch.

I'm rested. A goon night's sleep. I didn't nap yesterday and as a result I was falling asleep during my 9:00 PM to midnight watch. But I slept from 12:15 AM to 5:45 AM, 5 1/2 hours straight.

At 6:40 AM the sun comes up above the clouds astern, and a squall line is racing towards me from astern. It hits 10 minutes later, with the wind increasing from 20-25 knots to a solid 25. So what! The squall is close enough to get me minimally wet, but far enough away that I don't get drenched. I'm in full foul weather gear mode now. Its actually cold, and I could even use my wife's ear muffs. Even the ocean is colder. It was 86.4 degrees when we left Cocos Keeling; and now its 82.

The waves are bigger this morning, 8 to 10 feet on average; but they're 'softer' in their attack on us. Less confused. And the period or time between the waves is greater...and better. We're moving at 6.4 knots along the rumb line. Not real fast, but acceptable. Maybe we'll put more sail out today with the better, even though they're bigger, waves.

At 7:06 AM I shake our one reef out of the mainsail. The wind has dropped from 2-=0-25 to 15-20 knots. With the sun shining it's getting hot, so I take off my foul weather jacket and pullover under it.

A one-sided rainbow is visible on the port bow, emanating from the squall that hit me earlier. From left to right its colors are orange, yellow, green and blue. Wide colors.

At 7:30 AM I shake 1/2 reef out of the jib, just before a new squall hits. That was smart.

At 7:43 AM another rainbow is visible on the port bow; or is it the same one just different and better? This time the colors are red, orange, yellow, turquoise, blue and purple. Goes up at least to the perpendicular in front of me. A 7 on a 10 scale.

At 8:40 AM with 1 reef in the mainsail and 1 1/2 reefs in the jib we're doing 7.6 knots and 8.5 in the gusts.

Joel and Jeremy get up at 8:45 AM for breakfast, which starts at 9:20 AM: scrambled eggs, potato, chilled pear halves and breakfast crackers (because the cook forgot to thaw out the bread in the freezer). Oops.

At 9:55 AM the wind is 20-25 knots and we're moving 6.2 knots thru the water and 7.5 over the land. Its sunny and our heading is 260 degrees.

Joel from American Spirit II hosts the 10:00 AM net, with some help from Charlie from Celebrate as some of the boats are too far away for us to communicate with on the SSB frequency we're using.

Our noon position is 16 degrees, 31 minutes South; 83 degrees, 8 minutes East; and we're 1,466 miles from Mauritius. From noon yesterday to noon today we travel 157 nautical miles at an average speed of 6.5 knots.

At 1:20 PM our forestay broke. For those not accustomed to nautical terms, the forestay is a bunch of wire strands 1/2 to 5/8 inch thick that stretches from the top of a sailboat mast to the bow and helps keep the rig (mast) upright. The reason that the mast did not come down is because the jib halyard holding our roller furling jib held the mast up until we could install other defensive measures. Specifically, we took 2 spinnaker halyards and attached them to the bow; tightened the turnbuckles on the 2 rear backstays; and took a spare main halyard and attached it to the port, aft side of the boat alongside the port backstay to give additional support in that area as that backstay was sagging quite a bit.

After this we put out a little mainsail and are currently sailing at 4 to 5 knots. It is over 1,400 nautical miles to Mauritius and will take us perhaps 12 days to get there. We have enough fuel to motor 800 or 900 miles, so when we get close enough that will be an option. When motoring we can go at a higher speed.

Due to the moderately high winds and sea conditions we're not sure how that will affect the rig. Time will tell.

Five minutes before the 7:00 PM net, which we're supposed to host tonight, is the 'emergency notification period' where boats that have an emergency can make that known to the other boats in the Rally fleet. We do so and Ghost takes over hosting the net tonight. Thank you Tim. After the net Folie a Deux, an American boat, and us talk and even though they're over 100 miles ahead of us, they offer to slow down until we catch up with them, so they can assist us and give us fuel if we need some to get to Mauritius. If we lose the rig and not the boat, we will need fuel as we don't have enough to get all the way there. Merlyn of Poole, a UK boat also advises us that they are changing course to intercept us and offer assistance.

A danger of losing the mast is that the broken mast can then not only damage the boat, it can hole the boat as it comes down, sinking it. And if anyone is in the way wheyn this happens the result can be a very serious injury or worse.

At 9:21 PM Merlyn of Poole is now close enough that Jonathan calls me on the VHF radio and advises me he is now our escort. He is 6.8 miles away and closing.

During my 9:00 PM watch it is still squally out, but the wind is only 14/17 knots and our speed thru the water is 3.6 knots and 4.0 knots over the land. Until we get used to the new sail configuration we're taking it easy.

I talk with Merlyn at 10:13 PM and again at 11:34 PM when he's now just 5 miles astern. He tells me he'll be our rear guard tonight and come up for a visit after sunrise.

Joel relieves me at midnight and then I go sit at the navigation desk to send out and receive logs and emails. I connect with Brunei, Philippines 2,315 miles away at a bearing of 59 degrees True. The send is fast at 1,400 bytes per minute; and the receive is good, but slower at 1400/600/1400/200/600/1400 and then 600 bytes per minute. I receive 2 emails from Russ from the large catamaran Nexus, as follows:

Hi Brian and crew,

I'm very sorry to hear of your broken forestay, thank God nobody was hurt. We're over 300 miles away unfortunately but if you need us to turn around we will do so.

Some suggestions;

First, establish a regular communication schedule and either activate the net or arrange a sat phone call at regular intervals with either all of us or at least the boats around you. You never know what might develop and you may need to reach us quickly. I would suggest every two hours, or four maximum.

Second, get your ditch bag together and by the companionway hatch now, and have everyone wear their harness, plb, and ais devices from this point forward. A rig coming down can hole the boat fairly quickly and you don't want to be looking for stuff.

Third, get your rig cutters and damage control materials together and nearby as well.

Fourth, make arrangements to get fuel from nearby boats.

I assume you are sailing under a deeply reefed main right now. I would worry about chafe on the spinnaker halyard with the flexing, so I suggest you rig additional lines from at least the spreader level forward. I'm not sure where your headstay broke, but if the foil is still intact I assume there is still a genoa halyard attached to the sail on it. If you can somehow de-rig the sail and get this halyard to deck it would double your protection of the mast. You might also try running a line through the headboard of the mainsail, with chafe protection on it, and out either side. Then raise the mainsail with the lines to the deeply reefed level and pull these lines forward to hard points on either side of the bow or to stanchion bases to give a little more triangulated support to the mast under load.

If you have a storm trysail that you can rig on a temporary inner stay, this would obviously be preferable as it pulls the mast in the right direction. But I assume if you had one you would be using it.

I hope this is helpful.

Please stay in touch. Jeannie sends special prayers your way, as do Laurie and I. We're happy to assist anyway we can, please don't hesitate to ask.
We will leave our handheld satphone on, it is the second one listed on your sheet.

God Bless you guys,

Warmest Regards,
Russ

Hi Brian,

Of course if your genoa was still intact around the foil and attached top and bottom, you could just tighten the Genoa Halyard for extra support and use the luff line in the sail itself.

Another idea might be to use your Spinnaker pole track. You could run the pole up high and bring the end down with a line to the windlass or other hard point on the bow.

Just some other ideas,

Warmest Regards,
Russ

Thanks to people like Russ and others in the Rally fleet supporting us we will sleep a little better tonight.

Brian Fox

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