Amadeus - blog Dec 9

Few important things were not mentioned in the previous post. First of all, according to Hungarian traditions, Santa visited Amadeus on St. Nicholaus day (6th Dec), and left a piece of chocholate Santa in all crewmembers deckshoe. Luckily everybody discovered this little surprise before putting on their shoes...

We gave up fishing finally. Few days ago not only the last lures, but the rode gone, too. Fishing is not our sport.

Last days were really busy. Two days ago, in the middle of the night, the jib halyard shackle released the sail, so it falled into the water. Qick fishing and the sail was on deck. The weather was stable so we decided on prompt repair and not to wait until morning. Stable weather meant 20-25 kn wind and 2-3m waves. Was not an easy mast climb. The furler came down, the jib hoisted again. And we never lost more than 10 percent boat speed during this operation. Perfect teamwork.

Next morning we felt lucky to have the work done. We found ourselves in the middle of a huge squall field, unpredictable gusts, heavy rain. We have been crossed by at least ten of them.

We had the most scary experience of the whole trip yesterday afternoon. We played the usual “who can surf down faster” game (the current record is 22 knots), when a sudden 30-35 kn gust pushed Amadeus over the top of the wave under it. The next 4-5m free fall bow down and the following nose dive to the line of the mast was probably the longest moment of my life. Luckily Amadeus appeared from underwater as if nothing had happened. Luckily we were sailing with furled in jib, only under the main, so nothing was really in danger.


Tamas
Amadeus