So right after posting yesterday’s blog entry, the first reefing line on the main parted with a BANG, the line chafed through at the clew fitting which is a ring that guides the line back down to the boom fitting. The wind was blowing 30 knots + on a reach and we were doing 8+ kn. After some discussion about why this occurred and how we quickly set the second reef point since the wind was building anyway. Jim and I sailed in much heavier winds down to VA with one reef and had no problems. When it broke the tail of the line shot back into the boom so it can’t be retrieved :-(. Why did it chafe through ? This is important as you’ll see shorty. During this fire drill the stbd genoa winch stuck in hi speed mode and would not shut off. We suspected the switch since this happened once before. We threw the breaker so all winches are manual and took the switch apart. It’s NOT defective so now it’l likely the solenoid that is stuck closed but WHERE THE HE** is it ? Removed an access panel in our ‘spice cabinet’ and traced the switch wires to a blue control box which probably is the solenoids. They are marked ETE106N1-483). Unfortunately it’s not easily accessed without taking cabinets off :-((. We likely will wait till Nanny Cay since we don’t know how/what to do at this point. We can manually control the winches for now and can use the main sheet winch to raise the halyard.
At Zero Dark Thirty, the second reef line went BANG and parted in exactly the same way. We could use the third reef but would have very little sail up. We decided to rerun the third reef as the second one. This involved Jim and I holding onto the boom end removing the third reef and resetting it to the second reef point. Then we went to the mast and reran the third reef line from starboard side to port where the second reef point is. This worked fine and now we can sail with second reef in and did so all night :-). At dawn we hoisted the main and shook out the reef and are sailing now with full main, course 148, SOG6-7 kn in light SW winds. Our goal is to make as much easting as possible and we are about to cross over the rhumb line. This will set us up for catching the trades in a day or so as they build. We are 650 miles to finish line and in spite of this we all feel fine and actually happy that we have dealt with these setbacks so far.
When planning this trip I told my friends and family, "Things WILL break”. That was my experience in the ARC and I expected the same for this trip. It’s how you deal with them, either repair or work around that requires some ingenuity and patience. Jim Underwood is our rock and has helped us deal with every one of these. I have not listed them all here as they don’t impact our safety, we’ll fill you in when we arrive. Hoping that Lagoon can guide us on some repairs :-)
GEM at sea, Jim, Jay, Craig, Grant and Vin