Today I had one of those “don’t try this at home” kind of situation. Just before it got dark, the wind speed dropped and shifted downwind, so I began the maneuver to put up the large gennaker. There were about 17-18 knots.
Everything was going well until I unrolled the whole line of the winder and it got caught up in the sail so that the line was strangling the sail and couldn’t go any further at all. This by the way was all happening at the very end of the bowsprit, at night and with 16-18 knots of wind… With the harness on I had to go right up to the end of the bowsprit (with the boat sailing at between 15-16 knots) so the sail would not flap too much when I was sheeting in…yet the more I sheeted in the sail the more the line strangled it….anyway….
To cut a long story short the whole situation really wasn’t much fun at all and I remembered Yann Elies who broke his femur in the last Vendée Globe…As I was on the bow, at the end of the bowsprit more than once I was plunged into the water up to my waist and the force of the water was really strong. There wasn’t that much wind (16-18 knots downwind) but even still it wasn’t a very pleasant situation. Moreover it was night and the water is about 8 degrees….
It was quite a lot worse than going up the mast but finally everything was ok. I hope it will all now wind up ok when I have to do it.
The situation continues as it has done over the last few days – those behind are coming in with more wind and those in front have less, with it shifting downwind, so the distances between us all are going to decrease. It may well be that the five us have no more than 200 miles between us. In about 35 hours the situation will reverse and those in front will be picking up more wind as it loses force for those behind us….so….let’s move it!!!!
The situation after the gate is being dominated by a large low-pressure system coming from the SW that will take us quickly to Cape Horn, but I hope it is not with too much wind as there is no way of getting around it- we have to live with whatever is given to get past Cape Horn. We have no choice.
