Day: 19 July 2018

Day 30, Thur 19th July. 51-27N, 149-14W. Daily Run: 117 NM. Weather: 10-15 Knots ESE, Sunny and cold, 802 NM to go
The forecast had the winds slowly picking up a little to ten knots or so then dying, however yesterday they quickly picked up to ten knots, and we were soon making great progress, I had a sleep late afternoon and while asleep they climbed up to 15-20 knots, I woke to find the boat heeling a lot and given that we had the full main up and the genoa was fully unfurled, we were way over canvassed.
I tried to get the genoa in but the force of the wind was too great, even using the winch on the furling line. So we went up closer to the wind and I let the sail flap more to take the strain off the forestay/furler. It was then I noticed that the block (pulley) on the genoa track had come loose again and was flying around up and down the sheet. Also because of this the angle that the sheet led onto the winch was all wrong, it was approaching the winch from above, not at right angles, making it very hard to use the winch. In trying to get the sheet a little looser, the wind caught it and several metres flew out. This was quite worrying now as I had a steel block, the size of a fist, acting like an angry one too, flying around just near me and the cockpit. On top of that the sheet was acting like a circus mans whip, with hoops flying back and forward down the side of the coachroof. All in all quite a dangerous situation, and one that certainly ‘could have had your eye out’ 😉 . Kathy pointed out later that it had smashed it’s way through the plastic window on the spray dodger making quite a mess. I managed to catch the block on one fly by and brought it down to the winch, I then had to get it around the winch and onto the safe part of the sheet, where I was able to get Kathy to remove it, I still had to deal with the massive genoa flapping like crazy and the flailing sheet. On top of this I noticed the steel pin that holds the block to the track was on the side deck heading for the scupper (Drain over the side), I really didn’t want to lose this, but couldn’t go near it with the sheet so dangerous. With the sail so far out now, I was able to winch it in and when it was starting to come under control, I could see the pin was just halfway out of the scupper, so I jumped forward and grabbed it just in time. The genoa was then almost fully furled, I ran out of furling line again, this always happens when I use the winch. Then we went head to wind and dropped the main enough to allow one reef in, back up with the main, staysail out and then off we went into the night to enjoy a great sail for the next 12 hours . The whole exercise, that could have turned out quite nasty, really does emphasise the point of always reefing early. The genoa doesn’t come much further aft than the mast, but this is a cutter rig, I think on a Bermudan sloop rig the same genoa would be more like 140%, either way, in 20 knots of wind, the forces it creates are quite something.
During the night the wind dropped a little to around 10-15 knots, and continues to drop slowly, however it was meant to veer and has not changed direction at all, this means we are having to go further north than I first planed, we are now further north than our destination, but that’s ok, as it takes us above the centre of the high pressure, so we should make up for the extra distance by having better winds.
We tried to put the clocks forward an hour today, but we couldn’t find a time zone that fitted our location, eventually I realised that we should be in Anchorage Alaska time zone, as this is about how far west we are. The problem I hadn’t anticipated is that somewhere between Japan and here, Daylight savings time kicked in. They don’t have this in Malaysia or Japan, so we have been on ‘Winter time’ up until now. So to go onto Alaska local time meant putting the clock forward by two hours. hence this blog is being written 2 hours early and our daily run is for a 22 hour day. I’m also struggling to fit lunch in having just finished breakfast 😉 I think we need one more time shift of an hour to get us onto PDT.
Supplies are getting perilously low on board now, Kathy is not going to have any wine to declare to customs on arrival (she does have some emergency Saki) and I’m down to my last two bags of mini kit-hats, before I move onto rationing the Orios.
Now it’s back on deck to shake out the reef and repair the broken sheet block.
Paul Collister