Dolfijn - Dolfijn's ARC - Days 7-9

Day 7
Back up with big blue spin and easy sailing, the seas had smoothed out so keeping a course was easy and not so much swinging around on the waves which could cause a wrap in the spinnaker - something none of us wish to repeat anytime soon! On the change of watch we always ask what the course steered is, in case the wind has changed direction a little bit, and on his way down to his bunk Paul told Jim to just "follow the yellow brick road" and went off watch. It took some time to figure he meant that the course was directly into the light of the moon shining on the seas if it was yellow road.

Daily Miles = 168nm

Day 8
The day from hell! It all started fairly well with the boat trucking along under blue spinnaker talking to the yacht Momo as we went past both of us taking pictures as we went, when a couple of hours later the spinnaker halyard gave way and the spinnaker blew out from the mast and into the water. Paul neatly side steered the boat so we didn't run over it, and with the off watch on deck within a couple of minutes the spinnaker was soon back on board. Our white sails were unfurled and we carried on while the mess was sorted out and the spinnaker packed and made ready to go up again, only this time we could not get the white sails to furl. We sailed on while we scratched our heads trying to figure out what could be wrong but in the end it meant the skipper going up the mast to find out, and to run a new spinnaker halyard to replace the broken one. Everyone got ready for the procedure, the crew taking the mainsail down to make the ascent safer, the skipper going to the toilet again! And then it was time, with Jim, Joe and Dawn winching the quivering bulk of Richard slowly up the mast while Paul tried to steer the smoothest course to reduce the swing of the mast. Finally Richard was at the top of the mast and wedged in to the shrouds (wires that hold the mast up) which, whilst painful on the legs, meant that there was little chance of swinging out away from the mast to come back with a big bad bump. Whilst trying to fix the furler the halyard holding the whitet sail up came away from the sail, and while the crew down below were trying unfurl it all the way, the sail shot down the grooves it sits in straight into the sea. Another neat side steer by Paul and a mad scramble by the crew got the sail on board in no time. Unfortunately this meant that the boat now had no sails up and therefore no power to steer on the waves, ending up with a boat rocking wildly in the swells. This had the affect 18 metres above the water of the craziest fairground ride you can imagine, sideways swings of 5 metres eithe side of vertical while having a 3-4 metre swing backwards and forwards - for someone not terribly fond of heights it wasn't pleasant! Quickly a new spinnaker halyard was passed up and threaded through the turning block and the furling gear at the top of the mast was duck taped out of the way so that the white sail could be used and then it was down to the deck. As soon as Richard was on deck and had stopped shaking enough to be of some use, the mainsail was hoisted to get under way again, then the blue spinnaker. Within what seemed minutes the wind rose to the point where carrying the spinnaker was uncomfortable, so down it had to come and back up with the white sail. No sooner than that was set than the sheet popped out of the end of the pole - no problem it was quickly reset the sail set flying and then bang it was out of the pole again! Finally sussed that we needed to add a strop to prevent this happening again and we settled down again. During this time, the yacht that we had passed, Momo, had noticed we were without any sails for a time and had come across to make sure we were alright - unfortunaely in the heat of the several moments we were having no-one heard their calls on the VHF - still we were very grateful for their concern and feeling a little happier that we're not out here alone really. In terms of the crew, Richard is exhausted with cramping in the legs and strain in one shoulder, Joe has strained his back and his leg is numb from a recurrence of his sciatica problem, Jim has several hundred bruises from where he got attacked by the spinnaker pole, Dawn is exhausted and seems to be going down with a cold/sore throat and Paul just has his gammy shoulder and back that he's always had - fine racing crew huh?

Daily Miles = 173nm

Day 9
This was supposed to be a recovery day tto get us all back up and if not running then at least crawling! The winds stayed good and we were barreling along at over 7kts with moderate waves. Then the automatic bilge pump gave up the ghost so it was manual pumping to get rid of the water coming in from the rudder which had increased a bit in the bigger waves. Fortunately, even though Joe couldn't feel one of his legs, he was able to replace the broken bits in the pump so that w ecould be spared that bt of exercise. Around 19.00 a large super yacht passed by and gave us a call on the VHF - it turned out to be Hyperion which myself and Dawn had last seen in Sardinia ealier in the year - which brought a bit of something different to the day.

Daily Miles = 164nm