Day 6

Thursday, February 3, 2022, 1:09PM

SOG 5.7kts

A lot of shit going on this morning. We started with light winds, just about 3 knots, so we decided that we should take the trysail down. The trysail is a small, usually brightly colored sail, much smaller than even a triple reefed mainsail. Its purpose is to be used in heavy wind situations. We pulled it up yesterday, in the afternoon when the winds were hanging in the 20’s with gust expect to be even higher, just as a precaution going into the overnight; changing sails at night is not usually fun, and can be dangerous. 

The trysail wouldn’t budge; it should easily slide down on it’s own independent track with little resistance. Both John and I tried pulling with all our might, and our weight to pull it down, no go. Next we added a downhaul, a line used to as its name indicates down haul something. We attached the downhaul to the sail tack, the bottom front corner onto a winch, still wouldn’t budge. On to our next solution, I would go up the mast in a boatswain’s chair, basically a canvas harness that you sit in while someone, using a winch, pulls you up the mast.

While I get myself situated in the chair, John puts together the tools I may need, as well as grabbing the electric winch handle. It looks and works like a high powered, high torque, low speed drill. I tied the spinnaker halyard directly to the boatswain chair, not trusting the shackle, not just this shackle, but any shackle to hold. Direct line, with the shackle as a backup failsafe is the way to go.

Using the electric winch, John got me about six feet off the deck, and I stopped. John yells up to me “battery is dead, let me get the other one”. So I’m suspended there, rocking with the boat, steadying myself with the port inner shroud in my left hand and other secured halyards in my right, with my feet fending off whatever when necessary as the boat sways. John made it back on deck, replaced the battery, and up I go…about three inches, “fuck, looks like we’re doing it manually”, I here John exclaim; the back up battery was also dead. By this time, even though the boatswain chair was digging into my nether regions below and my chest up high, I was getting somewhat comfortable with my surroundings. 

John slowly raised me to the top of the trysail and I started pushing each glide down. Surprisingly none of them were stuck, it just seemed to be the culmination of all the glides needing to be lubed with spray-on a graphite lubricant. From the top I pushed each glide a few inches at a time down the track as John lowered me in unison. At first it was just a few inches at a time, then a foot at a time, then two, then John was able to pull the sail free of the track and lower me to the deck. At this point if it weren’t 10AM I would have had a beer.

John lubed the track and the glides, we folded the sail, put it into its sail bag and stowed it below decks.

We caught our breath and had some water, the wind picked up, so we had to stop slacking and put up some sails. Which we did, we pulled out the jib on the starboard side, decided it would be better, for our heading, to switch it to the port side, so we pulled it in so we could let it back out on the port side. Then it was time to pull up the mainsail, we tried to do that but we needed to turn into the wind to do so. To keep the jib from flapping around while we pulled up the mainsail, we once again had to pull in the jib. Jib in, head into the wind, mainsail up, turn down, jib out, and we’re off and going.

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Last night’s dinner was another Jens job, breaded baked chicken, coleslaw and basmati rice. As usual it was quite good. 

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It’s time to mention Cocktail Hour- Most nights before dinner we have had the civilized occasion of a cocktail, some light snacks and some conversation. It really is something to look forward to each day. Our cocktails today were for Dennis, John and I, Gin and Tonic. Jens went with Jameson and soda. The nibbles were crab salad and smoked gouda with crackers. We’re still not suffering. 

I had the midnight to 4AM watch, with little wind we motored the whole watch, no other traffic on the AIS.

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As I have experienced other long distance blue water sails it was time to start the: “Guess what time we will arrive” contest. After much debate and lobbying from John and I to have the rules be whoever comes closest to the time of arrival in Guadeloupe wins, that’s it, none of this “without going over” shit, which would favor the last person choosing. Whoever wins doesn’t have to pay for dinner or drinks the first night in port. Oh yeah, I won the guessing game for the Marblehead to Halifax Race on Avocet in 2017.

These are our “official” guesses-

John 2/20 @6PM

Dennis 2/22  @11:47AM

Peter 2/23 @10AM

Jens 2/20 @6AM

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