Dear Friends,
Big Mama has been asking me to do this blog for quite some time now. I know its been eleven months. I just never felt the need to say anything. I realize that her legion of loyal readers may stage an uprising when this is posted, but I need to explain in my own words what happened yesterday when our beloved A-sail needed to come down.
As it is every a sail change takes place aboard Crazy Horse, first there is a long heated debate about how we need to sail faster (Bill), how the sail won't work in these conditions (Me), or how everything we do is too damn dangerous and we're crazy for wanting to fly the spinnaker in these winds (Big Mama). After we have had sufficient time to anger ourselves to an alarming degree, the sail inevitably goes up so we can prove the Captain wrong. Since Big Mama is the only one with any sense, something usually proves she was right. Nonetheless, the spinnaker sailed well all day, the boat occasionally touching twelve knots surfing down some of the bigger waves. Later on, as the Captain was touching close to twelve hours of sleep, I woke him as the winds were building and so were the waves, time to take the spinnaker down. He asked if I needed help on the bow, but I like to work by myself so I say no, and he gets ready to blow the sheet and I am ready to pull the sock down. The sheet is let out, but the sail stays filled, no doubt aided by twenty-five knots of wind. I can only pull the sock down about two meters, with so much wind its like trying to put baby booties on an elephant. So I'm yelling to let it out more and a gust of wind rips the retrieval line out of my hands, so now the sock is impossible to pull down, as the line to pull it is whipping around ten meters out of my reach in front of the boat. Then the line wraps itself around the furled jib, still out of my reach, and finally the clew breaks from the sail and now the whole thing is whipping around like crazy. I tell the Captain to turn the motor on and speed up down-wind so this will take out some of the wind from the sail, which we do, amidst lots of language only sailors can appreciate. This helps a bit but we eventually have to let the halyard down and pull the whole screaming mess on board, which of course also doesn't work in the high wind, as some of the sail goes under the boat and now the Captain is yelling at Big Mama to set the engine in neutral before everything really goes to sh*t.
With lots of tugging and pulling, the sail is eventually pulled on board, battered and ripped, and stuffed into the sail locker. Whew! As I say, at least nobody died. Times like these is what sailing is all about. All joking aside we all have learned a lot from these kinds of experiences. Yes we still haven't learned not to use the spinnaker but that's the point. Sailing back home in the Chesapeake, I can count on one hand how many times we used anything but the jib and mainsail. Now in twenty knots and four meter seaswe can rig a sail and set the lines and feel good about it.
Being on this trip, we forget what a big deal it is, how far we've come and how much we've learned about sailing and about ourselves. Doing it everyday, ALL DAY seems a bit extreme sometimes, and many times I've wanted to quit and go home. But this is something I'll remember for the rest of my life, something I'll get to share with people and be proud of. All I can say is, if anyone reading this has ever thought for a second they want to do it, just go. Don't wait around for the wind to die down and the seas to go flat, the adventure is the best part.
So here we are, a few days from South Africa, and sailing fast. We're just about to plan which sails to put up today....
Happy Sailing,
Matthew Thomas
S/V Crazy Horse, part-time cook, deckie, peacemaker