Friday, 5 December 2008

SailBlog - Wipeout!

Graham
05/12/2008, North Atlantic Ocean

This morning's excitement was the 35 knot squall which hit us at no notice just after sunrise. Despite a desperate attempt to get the entire genoa furled in less than 5 seconds, it was too late. The wind rocketed up and we ended up with the genoa triple wrapped around the forestay. With the wind building even more, the flapping of the sail was phenomenally loud and getting quite worrying, as was the noise of the forestay trying to shake itself off the boat. Needless to say, we were not impressed or happy. With the main furled in to a pocket handkerchief size, and the genoa finally wrapped around the forestay, but packed away, we waited for the wind to die down to 20 knots before attempting to unwrap the mess up front. It took over an hour, but we finally got the ball of sail unwrapped, checked it was OK (it was, just) and we are now sailing along again in the direction of Saint Lucia. Life is back to normal and I'm off to bed!

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