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Starblazer - 11/01/2016-On our way to St Helena



Wednesday 6th was start day but we had urgent things to do before we left.
Our top priority was to submit our tax returns as we will have no reliable
internet before we reach Brazil in early February. We had both submitted
our forms by 0200, a celebratory drink and a quick tidy up of the cockpit
and we were in bed by 0300. The alarm was set for 0630 as we still had a
lot of stowing away to do by the start time at 1100.

We left the marina through the 1015 bridge opening and made our way towards
the start. The second urgent task was to refuel so we crossed the start
line under genoa alone, rolled it away and motored to the fuel dock. They
only sell diesel but one of the chaps drove me to the nearby garage with the
cans to buy 60 litres of petrol for the Honda generator. We finally crossed
the start line for a second time, under full sail, at 1230 so we had a bit
of catching up to do!

Leaving Cape Town was much like our arrival, as I was about to take a
farewell photo of Table Mountain it was engulfed by fog which quickly
enveloped us. As we approached Robben Island the fog started lifting in a
bizarre way, though it cleared around us there was a distinct bank of fog
along the coast with a very clear line above which was blue sky. Our
meteorologist friends will correct me; I think this was caused by a
temperature inversion related to the front which passed through, certainly
the air temperature dropped quite quickly and didn’t rise once we were out
of the fog. The wind slowly backed allowing us to pass to the west of
Robben Island, the rest of the fleet we believe had to pass to the east and
work their way away from the coast.

Sailing on Wednesday was fast on fairly flat seas but the forecast suggested
that the conditions would change as the wind built from 15-20 knots to 25-30
knots. We were lazy, we should have reefed down before we started our watch
system at 2000 but we were sailing well and the wind hadn’t risen and we had
already overtaken three of the boats in the fleet. Soon after I went to bed
at 0200 the wind built very quickly, so did the seas, the autohelm just gave
up trying to control the boat and John shouted for me to get on deck. It
was definitely time to reef with the wind hitting the 30 knot mark. It was
also pitch black, no moon, no stars, though our deck lights are a great
help. We decided to roll the genoas away, motor into the wind to pull two
reefs in the main, turn back on course and pull out the genoas. It didn’t
go entirely to plan. We had fitted two genoas on the forestay to enable us
to pole them out either side (wing on wing) when the wind finally goes
behind us. With the wind in from any other direction we fly them on the
same side, lying against each other. Each sail has two sheets (control
lines for non yachties), one down each side of the boat. To roll away the
sails one of us winches the furling line while the other controls the
sheets, keeping a little tension on the lazy sheets and easing the sail on
the working sheets under control so we get a clean roll. One person cannot
control 4 lines. Usually just one turn around the winch will be adequate
for the lazy sheet. Long story short, the lazy sheets got tangled with one
of the starboardside sheets, which should have been under control, the
resulting birdsnest of ropes put too much tension on the sail, I only
managed to roll half the sail away. Back on course, sheets tightened to
give us some control. I went forward to the mast to drop two reefs in the
main. John motored towards the wind, not far enough, I dropped the mainsail
part way, managed to get the reefing cringle (a metal ring) on the hook,
winched up the sail then attempted to pull in the reefs. I tightened the
1st reefing line but struggled to tighten the important 2nd one, I also took
out slack from the third. It was obvious that we had lost a batten and that
one of the batten slugs had pulled out of the car. I struggled back to the
cockpit to explain the problems. Decision taken, I went back to the mast to
drop the mainsail completely. We sailed for the next two days on genoa
alone.

There is nothing much positive to say about Thursday and Friday, huge seas,
winds often in the 30-35 knot range, the boat getting slapped by some of the
waves resulting in sheets of water over the decks and, occasionally, into
the cockpit. We were sailing quite fast but were back into ‘catching up’
mode. During one slight lull we went forward to untangle the ropes on the
genoa though we had managed to pull out a little more and control it.

On Saturday the wind started to moderate, still 20-25 knots with higher
gusts but the seas flattened a bit and the boat lurched about a lot less.
We spent nearly one and a half hours sorting out the sails, including
pulling the mainsail up to drop it under more control so that we could sort
out the reefing line problem and catch the majority of the sail in the
lazyjacks. It was a good plan but 3 of the batten slugs had pulled out of
the cars so we subsequently roped the forward end of the sail as it wouldn’t
stow neatly. We then set up our twin pole system for the first time since
Fiji 2014. Eventually we pulled out the genoas, one each side, and took
off! We only motored for 8 minutes while I worked on the main. Once we were
back on the heading John cut the engine and we drifted downwind at 4.5 knots
while we worked on the poles.

Running downwind on twin sails is easy: there is no danger of gybing, if one
sail backs it sorts itself out without damaging the rig, the boat goes
faster and you can maintain full sails in higher winds, it is still possible
to shorten sail by rolling the sails away together. In fact conditions were
so good we both had showers on Saturday afternoon, something which would
have resulted in numerous bruises or worse if we had tried on Thursday or
Friday. Once again we are making our way through the fleet though we have
only managed to pass the boats which passed us during our sail handling
problems of the first night.

I promise tomorrow’s blog will not be full of technical or sailing jargon!

Joyce



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