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Sweet Dream - Sunday November 10, 2019



Until today, the focus of the blogs for this leg of the journey between Reunion Island and South Africa has been food. Why food? I have written about what we eat because so many people ask us, “what about food?” What about it? Food is first of all, fuel for the physical body; it can be plain, elaborate, just necessary or enjoyable. It also transcends nutrition and becomes comfort, ritual, and helps define the parameters of the day, and contributes to the wonderful bond between people. Breaking bread together is a very important part of our day at sea. Yet today, I suspend my hedonistic musings to write about another subject; the hungry Indian Ocean. Heretofore we have sailed the Bay of Biscay, The Mediterranean, The Baltic, The North Pacific, The English Channel, twice through the straight of Gibraltar, the Caribbean twice, the South Pacific twice, the Atlantic three times, and the North Sea three times, but THIS INDIAN OCEAN beats all! It treats the boat like an errant puppy treats a new shoe; eagerly snatching and tugging, shaking violently side to side until things begin to shred in its gnashing teeth. At 00:30 this morning we discovered the Genoa furling line had been chewed through. Captain hastily effected a jury rig by tying the ends together. We were only able to furl it in halfway, but that was enough until daylight. At 08:00 we went to shake out the night reef from the main, and discovered a two foot hole along the first reef point just above the foot, and several smaller holes further in on the foot! Yikes! It was Captain’s day to host the SSB net, so he got on at the five minute til mark and asked if anybody was listening. Someday responded and graciously took over the net for the day when Lars explained we needed to get the sail fixed before the wind came up. We cleaned the salt off the sail with a tack cloth. Lars rigged a way to get the tension off the working area with a pair of vise grips and a short line that we attached to the vise grips, which was in turn, attatched to the foot of the sail just next to the main rip. I ran the line across the deck to a cleat and we tightened it down until the two edges of the big rip met. Then we commenced surgery. I cut and started the tape pieces, Captain placed them on the sail. Before we were finished the wind was back up to 15 knots and the boat was bobbing like a Dipper in a stream, but wonky as it is, the holes are held together and the whole mess furled securely in the roller furling within the mast. This has reduced our mainsail working area to a double reefed size, but leaves it still usable. Lars managed to salvage the long end of the Genoa furling line, I whipped the ends, and now we can just get the furling line around the small winch to pull the Genoa in and out. Meanwhile, a mile off our starbrd beam, Chao Lay was wrestling their big Genoa off the headstay because it had ripped at the seams, and could not be repaired in place. We don’t carry any spare sails, but we offered Chao Lay sail tape and fuel, but they said they’d make do with what they have. Nor’Easter did have spare sails, and were only a few miles behind Chao Lay. They caught up, and offered a staysail to fly as a headsail. In short, it works! Chao Lay sailed away at 6 knots with the jury rigged headsail. Yay! Nor’Easter is the Hero of the day, and just for a little while the appetite of the Hungry Ocean has been beat back, and we are all under way towards South Africa again. All day we flew, under our crippled, reefed main, and full Genoa, taking advantage of the positive current. At suppertime, the fickle wind crept around from the west-southwest to the south east, and ended up on our port quarter. We poled out the Genoa to starbrd, and pretty much put away the main for the night, augmenting this rig with 1600 rpms on the yanmar motor to keep up speed. I think this Ocean has gobbled up more diesel in four days than the whole rally has to date! (Proving that this body of water is not only hungry, but thirsty, as well). We enjoyed a lovely, if late, Sunday roast dinner with croissants to soak up the gravy and counted it all in all not a bad day on the Sweet Dream.


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