eXite - Exite 9/11 - climbing the mast at sea

At 15.00 we were about to gybe. At the same time that we gibed the main we heard a strange noise, and a second later the main came crashing down from the mast. The knot holding the shackle at the top had slipped, which is weird as it hasn’t moved anything at all for the previous 5000 miles.
At the time we had around 20-22 knots of wind and around 2.5m waves, which made the climbing process a bit interesting. We were considering going with only the jib until tomorrow when the wave might go down a bit, but we were between 2-3 knots slower, which isn’t really that fun.

At around 15.30 me (Joakim) had all the gear on - life vest, climbing harness, shoes and a short life line to hold me clipped on to the mast so I don’t bounce around too much.
Took around 30-45 min up the top of the mast before we had the halyard in its correct place again and I could finally come down. At around 16.30 we had all sails up again and were back in business! And without any real damage to the gear or people (though my whole body is aching from holding on for dear life in the swinging mast!).
Think we lost around 10 miles or so, which after all can be considered okay.

Weird thing is that a few hours earlier we had talked about getting a second halyard for the main in place before we leave Cape Verde, to avoid going up the mast when something like this might occur…


A little while later we were in the cockpit eating popcorn when we saw a BIG whale popping up about 300m in front of us, moving towards us while blowing water and air up into the sky. It got as close as around 30-50m before moving away from us again. A much better experience than the thousands of flying fish that we constantly see fleeing from us as we plow through the water.

Until next time!