I re-read my last paragraph from yesterday and wonder where I
was coming from. Was I high or just in a kindly mood?
At 2:20 this afternoon I am taking over for my next six hour
shift. I check where we are on the electronic charts (21N 21W), look for
evidence of other boats around visually on the AIS and on the radar (none), take
in the weather (low grey clouds and rain showers visible in all directions), check
out the wind (20 knots true right from behind), and look at the sails (aargh).
We are running, wing on wing, except we are not. The gib is held out to one
side with a spinnaker pole and looks fine but the main is pulled in as tightly
as if we were on a close reach. As we roll from side to side on the 3 m swells
it continually backs. In my lowly opinion it needs to be let out, let out a lot.
I pull HS out to look at this and explain what I think. He says the sails are
fine, but, just then, as if to prove my point, a gust grabs the main, snaps the
sail across, the 8mm wire preventer breaks, and the boom flies out of control
whipping across to the other side of the boat. Wow. If either of us had been in
its path we would have been, at best, knocked unconscious and thrown overboard.
This would not have been a funny Pirates of the Caribbean type of situation
where someone is picked up by the boom and left dangling over the water, no no,
it would have been more CSI Miami where they can’t identify you from your
facial features because your head is totally bashed in and so they have to use
waterlogged fingerprints to verify your identity. Fortunately this has not
happened. HS rigs a new preventer out of an old piece of line, I look at the frayed
and broken wire one and wonder why it wasn’t checked before being used, and HS
concedes that perhaps the main could be let out a little. He laughs off the situation but I am not
amused. For the first time I wonder how safe I really am on this boat.
I spent much of my previous night shift outdoors admiring the
stars and thinking about how difficult it would be for me, alone, to go back
and get him if he did fall overboard. We have a following wind, coming from
directly behind us, so if he went over I would have to tack back against the
wind to get to him (since our engine is out of service at the moment) and these
old full keel boats are notoriously difficult to sail close to the wind. On my
own, likely at night during a squall, because this is when these types of
things happen, I would do everything within my power to get him back, but,
speaking honestly, it would take hours not minutes for me to drop the sails,
take down the spinnaker pole, re-set the sails for close hauled, and then tack
back the few miles that we would have come during that time to return to
wherever he had gone over.
Again I am wondering if jumping ship – when we get to port of
course – would be the best plan.
The accidental jibe has left me a little jumpy. A gust blows
through at 30 knots and I interrupt HS again to check on things. This is his
off shift, really he should be sleeping, but, to give credit where credit is
due, he does get up and come to cast his eye over the situation. ‘Just a gust,’
he says, ‘it’s all good.’ I hope so. I really do.
