Sailing Bahamas – South America Day 6,7,8…

written by Bartek June 15, 2018

Day: 6,7 & 8
It’s never boring around here. While still sailing close to the wind i.e. jumping up and down sometimes madly we continue to get used to the abnormal for human being setting . Stuff continues to break, I continue to fix, Ania feels much better so we eat more regularly and better (see photo) and Vicky is helping greatly with it all. All this while the remaining to continue to largely not give damn about the whole situation while turning every conceivable thing and situation into a toy and game. We are sailing fast. That’s the other reason why we are jumping up and down. Speaking of, we made a video of Vicky in her bow berth going airborne. It’s hilarious. We’ll share it soon. Maybe as soon as tomorrow, because we decided to take a tour of Barbados.
The winds are E and even ESE for now, while past Barbados they are expected to be E and ENE, so the few degrees turn to the right now we can pretty easily probably claw back past Barbados. Out original route direct was taking us within 20 miles off Barbados anyway. On top of that our friend might give us a tour of the island and join us on the leg to Surinam. We are going so fast that even if we spend 2 days there we will still arrive less than a day after our original ETA.
Today we got so used to being tossed around that we even did some video editing and file organizing.
I had a unplanned trip up the mast as the remaining mainsail halyard shackle broke in half. That makes it two within a week. They were both 3 years old. Amazing how they worn out almost exactly the same. In any case for a few minutes it looked iffy, as I was trying to get a sense of how badly is the mast is going to try to kill me in these waves. Since the mainsail was stuck half way up the mast we decided to turn down wind and most importantly down the waves and get half way up to get a free the main and get a feel for going higher. Worst case we were doing 7-8 knots on the genoa alone, which meant we would reach Barbados Friday evening as oppose to AM with the main operational. As I got up there I noticed that the 3rd reefing line is wedged between the mast and one of the diamond shrouds and most of the mainsail is resting on it. So I quickly realized that I am not getting it done unless I somehow lift the sail. Then I looked up and noticed that it wasn’t the slide and dyneema rope that I installed a week earlier when the first shackle went, but instead it’s the other shackle that failed. The block, slide and the whole setup is still intact and just needs to be reattached to the sail. In a meantime a realize the waves are managable at this sailing angle and so I got to the top and pulled down the block with the halyard. Then Ania lowered me quickly. I found a new shackle and got right back on the mast. Attached it. Ania replaced my line with the main halyard on the winch and slowly lifted the mainsail, while I unwedged the reefing line from the shroud as the weight of the sail rested on the halyard. We only lost about half an hour and 3 miles downwind on this fix and we were back at full speed and capable of sailing upwind.
Now back to my favorite nightly entertainment that is playing cat and mouse with stormy clouds. 340 miles to Barbados
All the best,