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Escapado - 27th November Skippers Report



The North Atlantic stars are out! I’m always amazed by their brilliance. Of the oceans I’ve crossed or sailed in, these stars are some of the sparkliest!

 

 We ripped the asymmetric early on and whilst we had a superb 24 hours flying the symmetric through the night the pole has been keeping us on our toes with the release mechanism spontaneously opening. The colourful symmetric jerks round behind the main with its free flying guy pressing on the forestay.

 

 These crew haven’t flown spinnakers before, so each time I’m calling for them to pull on the lazy guy for a drop and not the tack of the kite which could whisk them into the air has meant my heart raced a few times! So I’m repeatedly teaching the lazy guy and it’s improving! We’ve had many bare-headed drops because of the poles tricks but the two symmetrics are still intact & happy. Meanwhile a surgical operation has been taking place down below on the asymmetric kite. It’s nearly stitched back together ready to fly. And looking quite smart too!

 

 The crew are working well together and their chatter and laughter makes me smile. We are beam reaching at the moment which has given us time to come up with a new solution to prevent the guy from releasing... let’s hope it works on our next spinnaker run... none of us want to drop back in the fleet.

 

Escapado is working hard too and keeping up with all her sail changes. She handles beautifully under a canopy of canvas.


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