[password] Cowboys99
[status]
:position 10 47.41s 134 27.22e
We're now well over half way to Darwin, the Gulf of Carpentaria a long way behind us. The wind has been back and forth between 8-15knots, always from the south east, so perfect really. But the ocean swell caused by the wind blowing over the Gulf of Carpentaria has made for a pretty rolly first-half of the trip. Not much sleep for anyone unfortunately. Plus, given the heat - 28-30 degrees C each day - we're all a little tired and grumpy! But now that we've rounded Cape Arnhem we're no-longer feeling the ocean swell and the conditions are near-perfect. We've had a good night's sleep, eaten well, and are beginning to relax into the trip. It's surprising just how exhausting the constant rolling motion can be - you can't even sit down without having to brace yourself against something.

The day before yesterday, just as the ocean swell was beginning to fade, the line that attaches the spinnaker to the top of the mast snapped. Down it came like a lazy dream and lay flat on the water where it was whisked away, streaming out behind us like a giant sail-slick. It was quite a shock watching something so massive and so close-by do something so completely unexpected! We began to drag the sail back onboard which was quite a feat - the heavy rocking-motion made it difficult to lean over the lifelines to pull it up out of the water, and the boat's residual speed created a tremendous drag on the sail. And once the sail was on deck, the wind would try and blow it over the side again, so we wrestled with it for 20 minutes before finally managing to stuff it down through a hatch into the cabin below. Fortunately we didn't get it wrapped in the keel, propeller or rudder - that really would have made things difficult.

Naturally, when something drastic and highly visible goes wrong like that, despite being in the precise middle of nowhere, the crew of a passing container ship got to enjoy the show. Sigh!

With the sail back onboard, we rolled out the genoa (the smaller, everyday headsail) and got back underway. We used the spinnaker halyard from the other side of the mast to re-hoist the spinnaker and pull it into it's storage sock, leaving it to hang there like a long, wet sausage to dry out. Then before dark, we lowered it back through the hatch and spent the night sailing under genoa alone, making 4 knots instead of 7. We all slept well thanks to the diminished ocean swell and not having the spectre of the spinnaker up all night. It's such an unforgiving sail that rule number two of "Sensible Sailing" says "Never sail with the spinnaker at night!", a rule that we've broken once or twice on this trip already. But we were quite fortunate that the halyard snapped during the daylight - managing it at night would have been a fiasco!

We discovered the problem was a worn-out spinnaker halyard (rope) that had simply snapped - it was very old and sun-damaged and had decided that today was the day to give way. We wouldn't be able to use the spinnaker again on a port tack without replacing the halyard, which meant that someone had to go up with a replacement. (Always carry a spare couple of halyards - Sensible Sailing rule 17a, I believe!) Jason and Paul were positively champing at the bit to volunteer, whereas Ermina (far too sensible) and I (have done it before and know *precisely* how awful it is) were keen to let them.

Jason drew the short straw, and with the boat rocking and rolling from the ever present swell, was hauled up the mast to the top where he hung-on bravely (shocked, I'm sure, at just how high the mast is!) Once there, he fed a weighted, lightweight line down through the opening at the top of the mast to Paul who, standing on the boom, used a hook to catch and pull the line out through an opening at the bottom of the mast. Then, using the lightweight line, we pulled the spare halyard up the inside of the mast, over the block at the top, tied it to Jason, and then lowered him back down to deck-level. Everyone did an excellent job to fix the problem, and Jason especially for managing not to throw-up due to sea-sickness. The boat's motion at deck level was bad enough, but is always magnified greatly at the mast-head.

The whole time he was up there, there was a pod of dolphins swimming around us causing a certain amount of distraction that probably caused the project to take a little longer than it should - much to Jason's annoyance!

Now we're back in business again with nothing but a small tear in one of the spinnaker panels. I have a sail repair kit but none of the lightweight material that's appropriate for the spinnaker. So we're hoping the tear doesn't grow any bigger. Hopefully it'll be easy to repair in Darwin once I locate a bit of material.

So that's all the excitement we've seen so far this trip - watch this space, though... You never know what's coming around the next corner!
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