Dolfijn - ARC - Days 13-15

Day 13
Another day another few sail changes and strange occurrences. Changed between the big yellow spinnaker and the slightly smaller blue spin as the wind and waves changed during the day - still keeping up good averages as shown by yet another climb up the leader board which keeps morale high. Somehow the rope that holds the spinnaker pole down came off the pole - there was no explanation obvious as to how this had happened, no breakage, nothing obviously worked loose everything looking OK. We took the spinnaker down at this point as the conditions were a bit marginal and we carried on under white sails only. Jim inexplicably took a chunk out of his hand after he came down hard into the cockpit as the boat came off a wave - after a very silent few minutes (Jim is not normally speechless for so long!) he bandaged it up and declared it not too bad - the Butchers Bill for the boat is growing though....

Daily Miles = 169nm

Day 14
During the day nothing particularly special happened just cruising along as you do, but towards dark the clouds started gathering and with a forecast of strong gusts of wind we made the decision to reduce sail to just white sails - a configuration that is usually more easily managed than mainsail and spinnaker. Anyway as the night wore on, so did the lightening displays grow more spectacular - mental note to ARC First Aid Seminars, requirement of welders goggles for night sailing! As long as you ignore the consequences of what might happen if one of them struck the boat, and let's face it how many people worry about being struck on land, they are awesome. Unfortunately along with these light shows come squalls of wind and at 06.30 the wind grew rapidly to gusts of 35kts and definitely time to reduce sail. It was at this point that losing the furling gear earlier in the race showed itself as a handicap - with this gear we can wrap the forward white sail around the forestay quite easily and safely from the cockpit, without it meant three people going up on deck in the dark to haul it all down manually with the gale force gusts trying to rip it out of your hands and someone unseen with a firehose trying to wash you away. Just to give a perspective of the size of sail - it would probably be the same size as your average living room at home filled with wind as though you were driving along at 65km/hr at the same time as you're getting lifted by waves off the deck and pummelled by ropes. Anyway we finally got his down to the deck and trooped back, very slowly and gingerly, to the relative comfort of the cockpit to review our options. One crew down with a little hypothermia as couldn't get warm, but nothing a little hot tea with honey can't sort out - another thing for the ARC seminars...honey, best sugar to get into body for shock/hypothermia and quick energy replacement.

Daily Miles = 157nm

Day 15
As the seas settled down thoughts turned to re hoisting the headsail only to find that the material which goes up the groove in the forestay had got stressed and torn in places and needed the magic needlework of Jim ably supported by Paul. As this was completed, the seas were calm enough for the blue spinnaker to go up and we were duly flying along roughly in the direction we wanted to go. A great day followed until early evening when it seems the worst of the squalls come out to play and about 19.30 we got hit from nowhere. Joe managed to trip the spinnaker sheet at the front of the boat just before we got hit by 35 kts - OK so the white sail was the size of your living room, the blue spinnaker is possibly half as much again - with Jim and me just about holding on while the sail drowned out any other sound flapping angrily in the breeze. Finally we got a break as the wind eased a couple of knots and Paul managed to steer the boat so the spinnaker was shadowed by the main and it came down very quickly. Unfortunately not quick enough to avoid the sail getting ripped just from flogging in the wind and this puts a big hole in our armoury of sails, we are now definitely on our last legs in terms of trying to race. Coupled with the physical demands this puts on all of us with disrupted sleep and bursts of huge effort we are going to be a little more cautious of the squalls from now. Again it should be noted that another boat had seen our difficulties and radioed in to check we were OK - amazingly we received the message as while the spinnaker waas flapping away it broke the VHF radio aerial off the top of the mast and it is now dangling freely in the breeze! Later in the day we got the white sail re hoisted after surgery from Dr McKeogh and sure enough within a few hours another rope had frayed through causing a minor panic and physical effort to get under control and back sailing properly. Oh and all this on the day when the race control informed us we were now up third position - hurrah!...until you read the small print and find that the positions are incorrect and will corrected tomorrow - bu**%%!!!!

Daily Miles = 165nm