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Sweet Dream - Sunday January 12, 2020



What a day! After the lull during the wee hours, the wind backed behind us, and when Lars got up at 07:00 the first order of business was to get the Genoa out on the pole. We rolled away the plastic spray sides, prepped the lines and Captain went forward to set up the pole. I was concentrating on the 11 fishing boats surrounding us; calculating the best path to take to avoid them when crash! Down came the end of the pole that should ALWAYS be attached to the mast. In theory, that inboard end stays connected to a cup-like holder that slides up and down the track bolted to the front of the mast. It is controlled by and held in place by a contiguous piece of rope that one can cleat off at both ends. It should be unhooked at the outboard end(which clips onto a metal bracket at the base of the mast when not in use) this outboard end is then gently eased outward, while playing out the line holding the inboard end, as the inboard end slides down still attached to the track, and the outboard end can be clipped over the Genoa sheet, have fore and aft guys attached to it, and be raised by its own topping lift. That’s the theory...in practice it is an accident waiting to happen. For some reason, the inboard attachment doesn’t like to stay attached. This is the third time in three years it came loose. Lars managed to “catch” the pole without any immediate visible damage. He tied a piece of dynema around through the pole and bracket as a safety line to preclude this happening again. After 90 minutes of intense, nerve wracking struggle, the pole was attached again, up, the Genoa was out on it, the main flung out wide on the opposite side with a stout, stretchy preventer on it, and the Hoyt boomed staysail sheeted in tightly midline. This rig sufficed for five hours until the wind took a nap. Then Captain put on the motor for a couple of hours. Our noon to noon run was 152. Not bad. The wind came back and the engine went off at 14:30. At 15:00 a fascinating thing happened. We sailed through a leaping school of bonito tuna! They were all around the boat leaping and cavorting about. Captain got up and was rigging a fishing lure when the lure hit the water prematurely and a huge five foot long grey shape snatched at it, then spit it out! The lure finally ended up on the rod n reel rig, only to catch a hapless white-chinned pertrel. Poor bird! I reeled it in, and somehow it unhooked itself! Whew! So happy to see it take flight! After that we put away the lure and ate fresh vegs on rice for supper. By 19:00 the wind was howling, and so was I for some reefs in the sails. Captain put in one, then a second, and finally at the 22:00 shift change, he reefed the main enough to knock our speed back to 8-9 knots. Just after he went down, we were recording wind speeds in excess of 30 knots, as we surfed the giant attendant swells at ten knots, I was thankful for the double reefs in the Genoa and the triple reef in the main and praying that the pole would stay attached! All night long we rocked and rolled in good wind and the pole held. What a crazy day it was! Hard to believe that just one year ago we sailed across the start line for the World Arc in St. Lucia.

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