The day dawned well with a nice sunrise, and I always enjoy dawn at sea - the muted colours make it quite special. With only carrying a genoa overnight we had slipped more or less to the back of the fleet as others had gone by with their coloured sails, or two white sails, up. I was keen for first watch change at 0900 when, together, we could hoist our big ballooner. However, over the next couple of hours the wind increased to 20 knots, and I was a little concerned about doing a hoist in such wind. That would be a first.
David did not wake until 0945 but was feeling much better. He thought we would manage the ballooner hoist in the prevailing conditions. So out we ventured onto the rolling deck clipping on as we went. We had already gybed the genoa over to the port side. We took in the starboard pole, detached the genoa sheet, rigged the ballooner sheet, and put the pole out again. On the foredeck David aimed to feed the ballooner into the starboard track on the genoa foil and I, at the mast, hoisted the sail. But both jobs were very hard and too slow. The wind took the ballooner and blew it forward. Okay, we have been there before on drops. But in a roll the sail blew from the front to around the outside of the genoa and a bit of it started to fill, pulling some of the sail down the length of the boat. And then the sheet under the boat, trapping the clew against the port forward section of the hull. David wrestled to get the big sail back, around the pulpit, and anchor, and fender step attached to the anchor as part of the starting instructions. I went to help and slowly, between us, we got most of it back onto the starboard side of the foredeck. But we just could not get the clew around as the sheet under the hull was pulling it down. We had no choice but to release the sheet from the pole. That enabled us to get the ballooner clew around the bow and, using a boat hook, we pulled the sheet upwards along the starboard side. But it was so hard. We furled some genoa to slow the boat down. That made it easier, but we still couldn’t pull all of it up/in. So we furled all of the genoa. Still couldn’t do it. Then, horrors upon horrors, we thought it must be round the prop. We worked the sheet on the boat hook to be at the side of the boat level with the prop. With baited breath I started the engine, and after 1,2,3 I flicked it momentarily into and out of reverse as David tugged at the ballooner sheet. Up it all came, without a blemish, back on board. We motored for fifteen minutes to check the engine was okay, which it was. Genoa back out and off we go again.
We had got a small rip in the ballooner, surprisingly a dry not wet bit, which we mended, feeling a little despondent about our failure and poor decision making in going for the hoist. But, I suppose, we had handled the matter between us and not made it into a crisis. We made up another boat rule - the ballooner is not to be hoisted when it is blowing more than 15 knots. We were still quite deep down wind so, in an effort to go a little faster we put out the mizzen. As the morning went on the wind went more east, we hardened up a little onto a very broad reach and put out the main, keeping back about one reef.
During the afternoon the current turned against us and the wind increased to 20-25 knots. We had some big disturbed seas in the stronger wind against current. We bobbed around like a cork weaving our way along the top of all the waves and troughs, sometimes surfing down waves, but never getting water on deck. The noise was tremendous as we enjoyed a somewhat boisterous sail. Took the mizzen in temporarily to calm things down a bit. Had a big pod of dolphins with us for a while who jumped out of the water, span, and noisily belly flopped back in.
Darkness came again. The bright moon was out as the sun set. There are six of us ARC boats in our 15 mile ring on the chart plotter. Can’t see anyone though. That’s perfect. It feels just like it’s us, on our own, with Frances Louise, out in the big wide ocean, going on our merry way. Awesome. But we know others are nearby, and have something in common with them should we need to contact them. There’s been a couple of cargo ships go through the fleet too.
The wind continued over night at around twenty knots, but the current reversed and the sea state subsided, apart from the odd big wave rolling through. We took the mizzen in before nightfall, to air on the cautious side. Later the wind freed and was hovering above 20 knots so David took in the main too. Back to flying along under poled out genoa at around six knots, which is plenty for us.