Risque Business - Day 1, Leg 2 Setback

Well this wasn’t in our plan!

We had a good start at midday today, along with 90+ other yachts. Nice NE F.4/5 wind filled our sails as we headed out of Mindelo and towards to open ocean. It’s amazing how quickly 90 yachts scatter from being a tightly packed at the start, but we took a more southerly course to avoid the wind shadow off the neighbouring island along with our decision to keep south in the hope of better winds.

After a couple of hours we were getting into our stride and Ed produced amazing BLT sandwiches for lunch. We put in a couple of jibes to keep a good heading and then we noticed a nasty tear in the mainsail up the luff. We immediately put a couple of reefs in to take the pressure off the bolt line running up the mast and the batten pocket. Once assessed, it was clear that an onboard repair would be very difficult and as we were only about 20NM from Mindelo and 2,180NM from our next stop, we decided to turn back to try and get it repaired professionally.

So, we’re now bashing into the NE trade winds which is not comfortable and only slow progress is being made. It is certainly nicer running before the trades! We’ll be back in harbour late tonight and hope to find a sail repair place that’s open in the morning and can sort the main out urgently. Hopefully a day or so and then we’ve then got to get after the ARC fleet and chase them down. Will update again when we’ve got some more news.