Gone Sailing / Riveting - Issue 6
After a relatively uneventful day of 10-20 knot winds shifting from south-east to east "ALL HANDS ON DECK" was called at around 9.45pm last night. The outhaul broke away from the boom which left the mainsail flapping freely from the mast. Not a good predicament but certainly better than a torn main sail. The sail was dropped, the boom lowered and assessment of the damage made. It was decided that the metal plate that had let go was going to be easy enough to rivet back onto the boom.
Tool boxes, drills, rivets and torches were strewn through the cockpit while the handy-men did their thing. The main sail is one that furls/rolls into the boom so we then had to carefully re-thread it back into its down position before hoisting it again. The whole process only took about 90 minutes and we continued to sail under headsail at about 5 knots throughout the operation so hopefully not too much time was not lost.
The wind continued to swing in all directions all night with us mostly sailing hard onto the breeze. We are getting used to walking and sleeping on walls as we are well heeled over. This combined with a short shitty choppy sea is let’s say bloody awkward and uncomfortable down below. It's a bit like being stuck in a kiddies bouncy castle except this bouncy castle's edges are hard not soft, it’s the same involuntary jolting, the claustrophobic noisy atmosphere and the feeling that you should be having fun but all you want to do is puke on your mate who is making it bounce so hard - interesting.. and we are doing this for fun!??! On deck is the definitely the nicest place to be, that is of course until a big green wave comes over the bow and dumps 100's of litres of water over you... hee hee ... bet you all wish you were here!
Anyway with all that said, are we having fun yet?? Yes of course, as they say a shitty day on the water is better than a good day in the office any time! We are fortunate no-one suffers from sea sickness so everyone is in good spirits. Things could also be much worse the conditions are not so bad it is just an awkward angle we are sailing on at the moment, we hope to bear away from the breeze by late this afternoon.
We just did the scheds and it seems we are tending towards the back of the fleet.. long way to go yet though - we should pass half way today which will be exciting. I must say it is nice too sail with people with equal expectations, each of us have the natural competitive spirit and like to do well but the priority is getting to our tropical paradise without breaking anyone and as importantly without breaking the boat. We all know and agree that with missions such as these, its all about the party at the other end!
Tucker:
Beef Bolognaise with gnocci ala Mike - very good indeed!
Oh dear, we just heard the latest Lord Howe Island weather which told us it is going to swing north-east which is exactly what we don't want as that is where we want to go - jeez not much good news today!! Oh well, we'll push on through, everyone is a little weary after the watch system was thrown out of whack last night but have slowly migrated into the cockpit for morning coffees and reminiscences of their evening watches, seems we had a good dumping of rain, I must have been bouncing around my bunk and missed that!..
Let's hope the next update will be more riveting in the exciting sense of the word and not about pop riveting more pieces of the boat back together!!
Signing off on behalf on the Samskara Crew, The Ships Cat.
PS: Thanks to Georgie for the Peace Train Chords and lyrics, a new number is being composed!
PPS: Today's unfinished corny ditty...
We thought Saskara had pace
That's why we entered the race
Little did we now she was painfully slow So we drank till we were off our face (joke of course...)
Day 3 we were looking a glamour
then we hit the eddy slammer
from second to last not going so fast
But from here will will hammer
Taking it in turns to steer
The course we thought was clear
obviously not as we sailed into snot
Lucky we brought enough beer
To be continued....
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