There wasn't a lot to report for a few days there, thus the lack of posts.
But then, just as I was thinking the Pacific was going to wrap up with a
long, tough, but fairly monotonous slog -- BANG!
It took all of two seconds to realise that the spinnaker halyard had
snapped. Matt later said it was a 50 knot gust, just more than the line
could handle. The Code 3 was streaming out in front of the boat, held only
at the two lower corners. It floated there for a few moments, then fell
into the sea to start dragging down the port side.
Matt, as I've said before, is cool in these situations. "No worries guys.
Tom, grind in on the active sheet. Mark, three wraps on that winch and tail
in the drop sheet. Kat, get some more bodies on deck. Sean, up to the bow,
we're going to have to bring the kite aboard from the tack end." A few
minutes later, I had locked off my line and joined Sean at the bow, where I
noticed the tack line sheath had gone. Sean and I tried to get the sail in,
but there was far too much tension from this huge bag of canvas being
dragged through the water at 10 knots.
We moved further aft and joined the rest of the crew, off watch having made
it on deck now, working to haul the sail in along the length of the boat.
We had some success, but one big bag of sail full of water was just too
much for us to lift. We were working at it when there was another bang, and
we soon realised the tack line had gone.
We were now dragging the sail by the two sheets. Alex said to me that he
would just cut the thing free, and I agreed, but Matt was determined to
save it. He came up with an approach where we would grind in on a sheet,
tie another line as far down the sail as we could, grind in on that, and
repeat. Fine in theory, but....
But nothing. It worked. It took maybe 45 minutes, and there were some big
tears that will take some fixing, but we recovered it. Despite it all being
a mess, it was also a great moment, with the whole team working well
together and salvaging a situation I thought was unsalvageable. It's still
going to take a lot of work to repair the sail, but that's probably one for
land. This leaves us with only the lightweight spinnaker, and there's
nothing in the forecast that looks like we'll be able to fly that. We're at
a bit of a disadvantage now compared to other boats, and we'll have to
catch some real breaks to podium, but we should still make Seattle in good
time.
On a personal note, as far as I know, my repairs held. They certainly
didn't start the problem. I'll check in port whether they survived being
dragged through the water.
It's been relatively easy sailing the past 24 hours, though the nights have
been really, really cold. We have another low expected through tonight,
which should bring with it some higher (but very manageable) winds, and
that should -- SHOULD -- be the last of the heavy weather.
1155 nm to go.
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