21:00
A day of mishaps.
The first thing that happened is the bridle falling off the anchor chain as we were weighing anchor early this morning. This seldom happens but when it does it requires using the boat pole to pull the bridle back under the trampoline into the anchor locker. Only, yesterday, we discovered that we lost the boat pole. Or at least we thought we had. As a rummaged through one of the lockers, lo and behold, I found the boat pole. So this mishap definitely had a silver lining.
It was really windy as we nosed out of the anchorage and into the open sea, blowing a steady 25 knots with gusts to 30. The sheets wrapped around the furled Code 0 were loose and allowed the top of the sail to partially unfurl. Okay, annoying but not problem. John and I dropped the Code 0 to the deck and lashed it to the stanchions. We wouldn't be using it any time soon. We got a bit wet, but no big deal.
Well, I screwed up. Rather than reach way out front of the boat to attach a line to hold up the bowsprit normally held up by the Code 0's halyard, I threaded it through the shock cord of the line that stops the sprit from dropping into the water when the sail is lowered. Well, the big wind waves took care of that. As the bow dove down through the waves, the shock cord broke,the end of the sprit fell into the sea and the force of the water broke the sprit at it's root. I noticed the bow sprit was missing, went up to the front, called for John to help me retrieve it and we both got soaked.
When we were unfurling the jib and trimming it for our course, I noticed that the jib furler was tilted quite a bit to leeward. This looked unusual but I attributed it to the high winds. Later, I happened to notice that the top edge of the tilted furling drum was sawing through the furling line. I caught it before it sawed completely through, which would have been exciting, but not before it had trashed the furling line.
Then Roy called out that the wind instrument was going wacky. I looked up to the top of the mast and saw that the wind sensor had come loose of its mounting.
We had a great windy, bouncy sail to Bahia Elena, no motoring required at all! The boat moved along nicely. The weather was beautiful, sunny, nice spring temperature
After we anchored intermezzo along the eastern shore of the bay in front of mangroves, we started tackling the day's damage. We got the jib furler sorted out by tightening the shrouds. I think. Sea trials will reveal if we did or not. We replaced the jib furler line. We prepared for Roy to go up the mast tomorrow morning to deal with the wind sensor. We'll deal with the bow sprit later.
After Kim cooked a nice pasta dinner, we were all beat tired and went to bed.
Tomorrow, after Roy goes up and down the mast, we'll set sail for Playa de Coco to refuel.
I hope for no more mishaps.
