"You pull your blue sail in, let your blue sail out, in out in out, shake it all about... you do the hokey-cokey and you turn around... that´s what it´s all about..."
Forgive me if you aren´t familiar with this British (children´s) party classic, and please forgive me for the cringeworthy re-mix if you do. We have been up and down like yoyos with the sails for the last 24 hours. We started yesterday with a poled out genoa and full main, and then we rejigged and re-rigged everything and had the Parasailor up and flying eventually yesterday (see yesterday´s blog entry) but by dusk the wind had dropped to the point where even that sail was collapsing and we were worried about it getting tangled up in something in the night, so we put the deck lights on and got ready to douse the beast. We nearly had to practise MOB for real when I released the wrong lines ("Lass die Leine los" sounds so much like "Lass die Leinen los" from 50 feet away...)and Dietmar nearly did a Mary Poppins trying to pull the snuffer down. I didn´t understand what I had done until afterwards´- despite over 25,000 sea miles under my belt, this is the fourth time ever in my life that I have been involved in spinnaker-y sail flying. Every day is a school day...
Trauma over, I took the watch and we ran under engine for a couple of hours, until Cesarina found a little more wind so I could unroll the genoa and turn the engine off again. There is nothing in the world more magical than sailing at night on an open ocean and last night was particularly beautiful. The wind whispered sweet nothings into the sails and the moon lit a silvery path for us, showing the way to the islands. As the moon set, fat and golden into the inky ocean, I gently woke Dietmar and we swapped berth for cockpit and chart table. I was asleep in seconds as we rolled on serenely through the night.
And then, at 6am, we had our first proper problem on board on this passage (I obviously didn´t cross my fingers tightly enough yesterday...) We only have two electric winches on board, normally used for our roller-furling foresail sheets. One of them simply failed; it let the genoa sheet go with a whizz and an almighty bang that woke me in our berth below the cockpit. I called up to Dietmar to check he was OK and he said "alles gut" (everything is OK) and I went back to sleep without knowing what had happened.
When I came up on deck at 8am, Dietmar had the winch in 500 pieces all over the cockpit floor and seats.
And half an hour later, we had a fully working winch again. Repairing a winch is a famously difficult boat job when the boat is stationary in a marina - so many tiny pieces that you mustn´t lose overboard - so completing this at sea is pretty super-human.
Not content with this as his day´s achievement, Dietmar then suggested we launch the Parasailor again. This time, with no one watching, we completed a textbook-perfect launch. And I managed not to lose my husband overboard, which is also a result!
Distance to go: 144nm. Boat speed 6.6knts, direct to Mindelo. With a bit of luck and the wind behind us (literally), we should arrive tomorrow evening. Keep crossing those fingers for us please! :D
Emma
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