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Timshel - Galapagos to Marquesas Day 13 and 14



Should have looked at the date, and it was all going so well! Wind (and our speed) was down a bit by morning so decided it was time to deploy the cruising chute - after all everyone else seemed to by flying them all along - or asymmetrics, schreechers or Code Zero or whatever or even Parasailors. I suppose it did give us a little extra speed but was so unstable in the swell that hand steering was required. Trouble really started when made to take it down at teatime, sail collapsed and started winding itself round the rig before the sock line was sorted, sock got fankled and jammed, tried to take down the sail in the conventual manner under the boom but the halyard jammed. 

The two of us spent a while fruitlessly trying to haul down the sail or haul down the sock while it twirled itself round both forestays. Eventually Steve had to haul Anita up the mast, we left the boat sailing with the mainsail under autopilot judging this to be steadier than stopping but it was were still rolling in the swell and trying to shake you off. The halyard was completely jammed in the block, had to cut it in the end allowing the sail to drop - luckily it came down quite neatly onto the foredeck and didn't fall in the water.

It wasn't possible to free the halyard from the block - will have to go up again with more tools to take it off. The two of us then spent about half an hour untangling the sail and sock from the forestay, before we could set the poled out yankee again (3 hours later) just before dark to run wing and wing again - would have saved so much time and hassle had we just done that all day. We ran like that all the next day - in fact still are, with the addition of the staysail set on same side as the main, nice and peaceful, no drama, Hydra the hydrovane steering. Found a couple of small holes in the sail easy to repair with spinnaker tape and straightened out it and the sock - still need to put them together and of course fix the halyard before using it again. 

Heard on the evening SSB that Ros on Misto had also been up the mast to fix the VHF aerial - with the boat sailing along under parasailor. Steve said that Ellen (MacArthur) just walks up her sail - mind you she also spent a while crying into her video camera after, but then she was in the Southern Ocean.


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