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American Spirit II - Day 275; Crisis in the Indian Ocean - Day 3 id 11; Tuesday, October 7, 2014



Three days down with our mast still up but 8 more days to go until we get to Mauritius and safety.

I go on watch an hour later today as I was up until 1:52 AM last night. I get up at 7:00 AM and relieve Jeremy. I see Merlyn on our port bow and on our AIS. They're 4.7 miles away. We have one reef in the mainsail and since the wind is only 12/13 knots I shake out the reef and go with a full mainsail. That picks our speed up to 4.6 knots. Hopefully the wind will pick up to 15-20 knots (and not 20-25); and we'll be able to get our speed over 5 knots, to between 5.5 and 6.0 knots.

We still have our storm sail flying just inside of the jib halyard. Its tacked to the port bow cleat, hoisted on our whisker pole topping lift line about 5 feet off the deck, and sheeted to the aft, starboard winch. Joel says we're going to take it down today and change out the line, putting Dynema line in its place. Dynema is stronger than steel and will not chafe or break.

Its important that the mast not come down for a number of reasons:

Number 1: It's a dangerous occurrence. Somebody could get hurt. Our spreaders are like those French blades that used to be used to decapitate people. A couple of years ago a catamaran dismasted (Black Wave is the name of the book) and the Captain had his leg cut off by a spreader. Our mast is about 53 feet tall and made of metal; and is a foot in diameter at its base.

Number 2: It could put a hole thru the hull in its descent. Since I'm not wearing my swim suit, I don't want that to happen.

Number 3: It could hang over the side of the boat and with the 8-12 waves we're getting bash into the side of the boat, creating a hole or holes. Which is why we have the cutting tools ready to go. If the rig comes down we must cut it loose if its damaging the boat. Otherwise we will eventually lose the boat, i.e., go swimming.

Number 4: If the rig comes down mine and Joel's circumnavigation this year with the World ARC Rally is probably over. Il finis. By the time we get a new mast, boom, sails, radios, etc. the fleet will be long gone. That is the thing that's been tearing at me for the last 2 days now.

I liken to sailing 1,400 nautical miles over 11 days in rough seas without a forestay to what Captain Bligh did after the HMS Bounty mutiny. He made an impossible voyage.

Joel is confident we'll make it to Mauritius with the mast up. If I could be assured that our 2 spinnaker halyards tied to the bow would not chafe or break, I'd agree with him. This is why we're changing the chafe points on those halyards every day. But when we do that it poses a problem because we have to let off on one of our 3 major lines keeping the mast from falling back; to change the chafe point. So to lessen the stress when we do that we turn the boat down wind a little. As those TV commercials say: 'Don't try this at home!'

At any rate this is day 3 out of 11 in our Indian Ocean crisis. We won't be out of the woods until October 16 or 17; a long time from now.

Our first 'aim point' is about 800 miles from Mauritius. That's 445 miles away. At that distance we can start to motor sail. When we do this we'll drop the storm sail and reduce the mainsail a lot, keeping only enough sail out to stabilize the boat. We're hoping that doing this will stress the rig less than is occurring now. We'll be 800 miles out by Saturday (Friday in Florida).

The 10:00 AM net is hosted by Bradley from Alpheratz. After the net we talk to Folie a Deux, our 'fuel barge,' and find out they're 112 miles from us.

At 11:15 AM we had to turn the boat 20 degrees to the right of our course line because the wind was going south. This moved the wind to our beam. Since we want to keep the pressure on the mast from the rear forward, we can't have the wind on the beam and certainly forward of the beam pushing the mast back. I called Merlyn and advised them of our course change. Jonathan said he'd seen our course change on the AIS and make a similar course change to stay with us. He also said last night he lost us on AIS and was quite worried until he saw our masthead light. I told him that I turn our AIS off when I do SSB radio messages because the radiation on our SSB unit has already blown up 3 AIS units. I advised him that I usually do SSB work at midnight when I get off watch; and that I'll call his boat and advise Sigi when I'm doing it; and call him back when I'm done and have turned the AIS back on.

Our check in procedure with Merlyn every 2 hours, 24 hours per day is working well. If we miss a call, they will call us. And if we don't answer they will come to our last location as quickly as they can.

Our noon position is 17 degrees, 21 minutes South; 79 degrees, 2 minutes East; and we're 1,226 nautical miles from Mauritius. Since noon yesterday, we've traveled 121 miles at an average speed of 5 knots.

At 1:00 PM we change the chafe points on the spinnaker halyards. Joel has to go to the bow to do this.

After that we dropped the storm sail and changed out the line holding the storm sail up to Dynema line, stronger than steel. To do this Joel splices the Dynema line to the topping lift line so we could pull the new line thru the mast. Then he had to make a collar for the line so it would function in the sheet stop. Because the Dynema line is so narrow and slippery, this needed to be done.

At 2:15 PM the wind is 19/21 knots and we're making 4.8 knots thru the water and 5.6 over the land. Our heading is 276 degrees, 10 - 15 degrees to the right of what we'd like. Merlyn of Poole is 2.9 miles ahead of us on our port side.

At 1:45 PM we celebrated our completed tasks by each eating a piece of Merlyn fudge. What a treat! Thank you Jenny and Jonathan.

Joel and I take a nap at 2:15 PM. I get up at 3:15 PM.

At 4:30 PM the wind is 16/21 knots and we're doing 5.1 knots thru the water and 5.7 knots over the land.

The auto pilot cuts off again at 5:29 PM. What a pain in the butt. One of these days we'll get that fixed.

Dinner is at 5:50 PM and consists of freeze dried Lamb with Vegetables and Mashed Potatoes; butter beans; chilled pear halves; and bread. Dinner boosts crew morale.

We turn the generator on at 6:30 PM to charge the boat's batteries. Usually the hydro generator and wind turbine would be keeping us charged up, but because we're going so slow we're not charging as much as we usually do. Normally in a wind this strong and with a higher speed, we'd usually go for days without using our diesel generator.

From 6:30 PM to 7:00 PM I type a log. At 7:00 PM Tim from Ghost hosts the net. Folie a Deux is 111 miles ahead of us. They've slowed down waiting for us, but we're just not getting there yet.

The sun sets at 7:14 PM and we almost see a green flash, but a cloud at the last minute spoils things. The cloud over the setting sun is actually lit up in a turquoise color.

I nap from 7:30 to 8:50 PM before my 9:00 PM to midnight watch; and actually get 45 minutes of sleep.

We turn the generator off at 9:00 PM and Joel goes below to sleep until his midnight to 3:00 AM watch. At 9:00 PM the wind is 14/22 and we're sailing at 4.8 thru the water and 5.2 knots over the land. Its still very wavy; rough, actually. There are a lot of stars out. That's always a morale booster. Merlyn is on our port bow 2.6 miles away. I can see their masthead running light. A very comforting sight.

Jonathan calls me on the VHF radio at 10:04 PM because I forgot to call Merlyn at 10:00 PM. My I Phone alarms only work more than once if you set it to go off every day of the week. Duh!

At 11:37 PM I look at our chart plotter and see that we're 1,167 miles from Mauritius. We're now over half way there. The half way point was at 1,175 miles. Yeah!

After Joel relieves me at midnight I compose an email to a rigger in Mauritius advising him of our problem (the World Cruising Club had already notified the rigger to contact me); and copying the boat company in the USA. The USA company will send the forestay specs to the rigger; or the rigger will get them himself from Beneteau. If the rigger can't make the new forestay with what he has in Mauritius, he will order and have a new forestay shipped in from France or the USA. I advised him cost is not an issue; to get the part via air freight as quickly as possible, if necessary.

I then send out a log and emails via the SSB radio; to Brunei in the Philippines, 2,541 miles away at a heading of 62 degrees. The 'send' and 'receive' for emails is fast at 1,400 and 2,800 bytes per minute.

By 2:00 AM I'm in bed. Jeremy will let me sleep until 7:00 AM instead of 6:00 AM. Thank you Jeremy!

Brian Fox

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