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Dala - The Halyard Story



Hi, all,

I just can't believe it: Yesterday the mainsail halyard broke!!!!
(French: La drisse de la grand-voile, corde qui fait monter la voile au mat et la maintient).
How could that have happened? I had a full rigging inspection back in Tortola and everything was fine. Richard our team mate went up the mast in Bermuda and found nothing suspicious. OMG! I am going to start believing in those Bermuda Triangle stories. But even this doesn't fit: We are no longer in that triangle, and if you read this blog you know we enjoyed it.

Anyway, back to my halyard: We heard an enormous BOOM! and the whole mainsail fell in the lazy bag, the boom started dancing and the reef ropes together with it.
First, we straightened the boom in the axis of the boat and pulled in the reefs ropes, in order to stop this unwelcomed dancing party.
We were in a total shock, glancing at the top of the mast and seeing there a small piece, about half a meter of what was once a strong and proud halyard.
Then we started to consider various jury-rigging solutions. I thought we could use our storm sail and somehow fix it to the mast. Its surface is tiny in comparison with the mainsail, but it's better than nothing.
The ingenious Richard had a better idea: Since the topping lift (French: balancine, corde qui maintient la bome en la reliant au sommet du mat), is largely helped on a catamaran by the vang and the lazy bag, we can temporarily live without it. So we can use the topping lift as an halyard. This rope being however much thinner than the regular halyard, we cautiously decided to use it but only after having taken three reefs in. So did we and we spent all the night sailing that way without any notable incident.
By this morning, we were however frustrated to sail significantly slower than what we could, because the wind was light and three reefs in was ridiculous. We talked about taking the risk of freeing one or two reefs but were very much reluctant to do do: The topping lift-halyard could break and we've had enough problems.
And again, the ingenious Richard stroke: "We can use the topping list as a messenger and put the halyard back in place." he said, adding "but we would need those special needles and tiny but solid ropes that the rigger use, so that we can connect the topping lift to the former halyard and put it back where it should have stayed."
WOW! Suddenly I remembered that I had those needles and ropes the riggers use: In order to prepare this crossing a few months ago Joelle and myself took a 2 days course in sails and rigging and immediately after I bought a full set of tools for that. Those were still quietly and politely sitting in the box where I put them then. I replied to Richard with a wide smile: "I have that!".
We started working on the idea and about two hours later we had our halyard back up and running again, allowing us to free a reef, possibly two later and catch some speed. Of course, we have no more topping lift for now. But this problem can wait until Horta.

In my former message to this blog I wrote that you are never bored on a sailboat. Now you understand why!

More stories to follow on my next messages, bye for now,

Albert

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