Going for a dip

Yesterday was panning out to be a bit of a dull day (from an activity rather than weather perspective) and I was getting increasingly worried about what I could write about in today’s blog. We had been sailing all night with the Blue Water Runner, and making great progress. Our normal routine is to drop the sail in the morning and in the evening to check for wear on the halyard (and if there is any wear, we chop that bit off - so be warned!). Yesterday morning we decided that at the same time we would try and swap back to the original, supposedly stronger halyard (the brand is called Hercules and so it must be truly mighty) rather than the spare halyard that we had been using. This involved sewing the two ends together, whipping around the join, and then feeding the new halyard up the mast whilst pulling the old one down. It got stuck at the top but after a bit of jiggling, it found a way through. Success. Surely Hercules wouldn’t let us down.

We were making good speed westwards throughout the day, passing through the one third of the way to go point around 4pm yesterday afternoon. Conditions were so benign, other than the continuous rolling, that Jacob and I had another go at persuading the generator to play ball, but he still refused. You’ll note that I’ve decided the generator must be a man because he clearly finds it impossible to multi-task. All he can do is generate power “I must generate power, I must generate power etc. etc.” The problem maybe that we’re rolling around so much that he finds it impossible to hold on and generate at the same time “I must hold on, I must generate…oh no, that was a big wave, I must hold on.“. The engine on the other hand is clearly a lady ” I must hold on, I must spin the propeller, ooh, I think I might generate some power as well, anyone for a cup of tea?”

Having given up on the generator, Jacob and I were sitting in the cockpit when there was a loud bang, and with a slight of hand that would make a magician marvel, there was no Blue Water Runner. Whilst this improved the view forwards, it did nothing for our speed. The next couple of hours were spent fishing the sail out of the water (it was clearly jealous of our swim the day before), lashing it to the guardrails yet again, and rigging up the spinnaker pole for the genoa. We finally got underway just before dark, and have been making relatively good progress under poled out genoa and the staysail since then. It’s too rolly to send Jacob up the mast (unless he’s very naughty) and so this is likely to be the set up until we get to St Lucia.

One thing I forgot to recount is that we changed the gas cylinder the other evening, but that story will have to wait until tomorrow. Believe me, it’s a lot more interesting that it sounds.