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American Spirit II - Day 273 Supplemental; Near-Catostrophic Rig Failure in the Middle of the Indian Ocean; Sunday, October 5, 2014



Supplemental log for today. Regular log to follow tomorrow.

At 1:20 PM today 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.

Brian Fox


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