Last night our ideal downwind sail set-up took an early demise. The mounting seas and wind astern had us surfing and corkscrewing down the waves, putting a lot of strain on our genoa and spinnaker pole which gave up with a bang. I was snoozing down below and heard the bang but Jonathan, listening to pod casts on watch, did not. He did see the spinnaker pole and genoa flogging free in the wind and the spinnaker pole downhaul and outhaul lying in a tangle on the foredeck. Absolutely what you don’t want to do in the dark, 20 knot winds and 3m swell is go forward to the bow. But it had to be done and fortunately Jonathan was able to unravel the mess and make us safe for the night. This left us sailing very slowly on just a small mainsail and staysail until morning.
By this morning the seas were getting bigger and we needed to repair the pole. Luckily, by daylight, Jonathan could see that it was an easy fix, replacing some dyneema rope at the end of the spinnaker pole to which we were again able to fix the down haul and deploy the genoa. We were so grateful that we could sail properly again although we have lost quite a lot of ground.
By early evening we should be hitting the halfway point in this leg to Mindelo. We currently have 3-4m swell and up to 23 knot winds but the latest forecast shows it easing tonight and over the next few days. Let’s hope that it does and that we can continue to enjoy days at sea, sunrise and sunset, and our spectacular starry nights.