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Starblazer - 06/11/2014 - Not plain sailing



In yesterday’s log I described this leg as the ‘potentially most daunting’
passage so far. Let me explain. The straight line distance from Noumea,
New Caledonia to North Cape, New Zealand is just 800 miles, then a further
100 miles to Opua. The problems arise with the prevailing winds which blow
almost directly against us and the weather systems which scoot along between
Tasmania and New Zealand. With luck we should pick up some easterly or,
even better, some north easterly winds otherwise this is going to be a very
long passage. We have spent 48 hours beating into a 15-25 knot headwind
with big seas. It isn’t fun. Starblazer is sailing well, with two reefs in
the main and several rolls out of the jib, covering 243 miles through the
water. Unfortunately those miles are in the wrong direction and we have
only reduced our distance to New Zealand by 148 miles.

We left the marina on Tuesday morning, refuelled and waved goodbye to
Noumea. The sailing throughout Tuesday was reasonably comfortable but in
the wrong direction!

Yesterday morning at 0515 I was writing the log during my watch. I had only
written the first sentence when I heard a slight bang then another. I went
up into the cockpit to investigate and spotted to my horror that the port
forward lower shroud had disconnected itself. I woke John at once. We
rolled away the jib, dropped the main and started the engine to motor slowly
straight into the wind. The most important job was to stabilise the mast,
this was achieved by tying the end of the shroud to a forward cleat,
tensioning it using the rope gypsy on the windlass. A U shaped saddle of
stainless steel, which holds the toggle on the end of the shroud assembly
and attaches it to a metal tang firmly bolted through the deck, had broken
into two pieces. Closer inspection suggests it had already cracked in a
place you can’t inspect until it breaks, something we didn’t expect on a rig
only 6 years old. We then spent about an hour effecting a repair, or at
least finding a way of reattaching the shroud and tensioning it. We used a
soft shackle made from 8mm dyneema to hold the toggle, seizing it in place
then tied the loop at the bottom of our new inverted U shaped part to the
tang on the deck passing an 8mm dyneema rope through both parts three times.
This repair should in fact be 2.5 times stronger than the 10mm wire shroud!

During the morning we tried to motor sail on starboard tack, to minimise the
stress on the port side rigging but were making even slower progress towards
our destination so ‘bit the bullet’ and went on to port tack. It was a wild
and windy night, big seas and 20-25 knots of wind. The rig held together
brilliantly. We have had to tighten the bottom strop once but are very
pleased with the repair. John inspects the joint regularly for chafe but as
it isn’t moving while under tension it is holding up well.

I apologise to those who haven’t understood a word of the above description.
The mast is held up by a number of wires, both backwards and forward and
side to side. Other, shorter wires are installed to keep the mast straight
when the sail wants to pull it backwards from the middle of the mast. The
one we lost helps to pull the bottom section of mast forward when the wind
is blowing from that side.

On the culinary front we are eating well though conditions are not conducive
to cooking. Fortunately I had cooked and frozen most of the dinners in
advance.

Tuesday lunch was egg salad, dinner was spicy sausages with couscous and
ratatouille.
Wednesday lunch was bean salad with hard boiled eggs, dinner was beef
carbonade with garlic bread.

Joyce


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