After about 10am, the sun came out, so we had breakfast, punished the bowls in the men's washroom, then headed out.
It was blowing 20 knots from the SW, we hoisted the full main going out the channel, turned the corner and were doing 5.5 knots on a broad reach with just the main. We rigged up the asymmetric spinnaker, and quickly hoisted it, passing Silver Shadow from Whitby.
We got the boat going between 7 and 8 knots in control under spinnaker.
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| AWESOME |
The wind and waves were building as we went offshore. When the true wind got to 27 knots we decided we better get the chute down.
We turned downwind to blanket the spinnaker behind the main, and Peter went forward to douse. The spinnaker halyard would not come down. While trying to figure it out we got the spinnaker wrapped around the forestay a couple of times. After about half an hour, Peter managed to get it unwrapped, and we discovered that the halyard outer cover had separated from the core, so the core was jammed in the shive at the top of the mast. We could not get the spinnaker down!
I set the autopilot to sail at a wind angle (broad reach) in 26 knots of wind under full main. We were still going 5.5 knots!
Peter hauled me up the mast in a bosun's chair using the main topping lift. The boat was pitching back and forth in the waves under autopilot. I had to hug the mast to keep from getting thrown about aloft. Perched on the first spreader, hugging the mast, I was able to disconnect the spinnaker. I hauled another line up using the pole topping lift to hookup to the spinnaker halyard so we could try and get it off later.
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| Just hanging around at 5.5 knots |
We un-furled the jib and sailed back comfortably wing on wing to Whitby.
Nothing but an adventure sailing with Peter.
The batteries died in the GPS, so stats and track are approximate.
Trip Odometer: 22 miles
Moving Average: 6.0 knots
Moving Time: 04:00:00
Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2014/20140921.kmz
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