Day 21 - Blown Headsail

At about an hour before dark I decided to roll it a bit of headsail for the night. In order to wind the roller furler you must first get pressure off the sail by easing the sheet until the sail starts to luff and flog. I saw that the sail was OK, eased the sheet, pulled on the line to turn the furler, looked back at the sail to see that it had split across its width in two places.

I was amazingly calm about it. Instant acceptance and "Lst's see what to do now."

The boat had slowed to a crawl and I wanted to keep it moving throughout the night. I figured that I had enough daylight to hank on the staysail, which is what I did. I put snap blocks on the cabin fittings, laid out the sheets through the snap blocks then through the aft cars then to the aft winches, set up the port running backstay, brought the sail on deck and hanked it on, tied the sheets, connected the halyard, then brought it up. It went very well, partly because the incident had focused my mind and partly because following discussions with Jak I had already designed the setup and knew what to do.

This got us moving. There was still a bit of daylight left so I decided to have a go at raising the mainsail to the 1st reef for a bit more sail area. This went OK and I found us traveling at 3 knots, having lost 1.5 knots in speed. Not great but acceptable.

It's not exactly the end of the world. I've got two spare headsails in the locker, one "heavy" and one "light". Having said that, these two sails started to tear before we even got to Adelaide, which is why I had the one that blew out today made in 2005. The two sails were repaired in Adelaide but I can't consider them top of the line sails.

I'm going to have to use the staysail as my workhorse. I'll set up the spare "heavy" sail on the roller furler but will have to baby it. All this means much slower sailing for me, but my focus has shifted from speed (subject to rounding the Horn by the end of January) to just getting this thing done without having to call into a South American port for repairs, at the cost of another year's delay of my return.

As for the torn headsail I don't know what to say. I had it checked in Port Townsend and it was pronounced OK after a few minor repairs to the UV tape. I don't think that I was driving it too hard. But I did drive it hard in the past and it has done a lot of work. Perhaps the wear and tear finally caught up with it.

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I woke for breakfast at 8 AM to find the boat still headed SW at 3.5-4 knots. I had had one scare during the night when I woke to the boom slamming a couple of times but as I watched things for the next 30 minutes the wind picked up. I looked through the cabin hatch and saw the staysail working away happily.

During the night I thought about the situation. I remembered that I have a very good sail repair kit on board that includes thread, tape, needles, and a palm. I also remembered that there are at least two books on sail making on board, which would inform me about stitching. The problem as I saw it was that the tears are so long that it may be better to reserve the repair resources to keep the replacement sails going. This was early days and I needed to get that damaged sail down for a better assessment.

While having coffee I noticed on the chart plotter that I am closer to the Marquises (1700 mi) than to South America (2100 mi). Baja is still closest at 1150 miles. I did some "What If" thinking and realized how tempting it would be to ride the trade winds back to Australia through French Polynesia, Fiji, where I could get repairs done, then around the north of Australia and down the west coast to Fremantle. If I were to get more serious equipment problems in these latitudes I would have to consider that option because I would not want to battle the trade winds to South America.

However, my preferred option is still firmly the Horn. It's not just that I've set my heart on it. It could also be the easiest and most practical route back to Fremantle. I figure that if I can make my way down to the westerlies, Western Australia will be a generally downwind run with a favorable current, which I could do with minimal sails in a pinch.

Regarding sails, I have confidence in three sails: the mainsail, storm trysail, and staysail. I have no reason to suspect that the mainsail (new in 2005) is not in good order. (It too was checked out in Port Townsend.) It is of heavier material that the headsail and has not had the same punishing life on a roller. The staysail is of very heavy material. I've used it in 30 kt head winds and to heave to in a gale without a problem. It's relatively small area and high aspect shape put it under less stress than the headsail, particularly from flogging. And it is hanked on wire, which I am convinced is easier on the sail (though not the crew) than a roller. The trysail I consider to be as bullet proof a sail as any boat could have. I had it made for this boat in 2007 and it has hardly been used. Once I am in the westerlies I can get home with that trysail if I lose the mainsail.

There is another sail. It is a "storm jib", never used, of very heavy material, designed to be "hanked on" to the headstay by wrapping the luff end around the rolled up headsail. Steve Hartley, the sail maker in Fremantle, told me that they used one overnight in a gale on one of the Sidney-Hobart races and gained 30 miles over their competitors. Not that I would consider using it in a gale. The point is that it can represent a bit more sail area to augment the staysail whose area is approximately 12.5 sq meters, 135 sq ft.

As they say in the movies, I'm still in this fight.

At 11 AM I began Stage I of putting up the spare headsail: digging it out of the sail locker. I tried too get some leverage out of the operation by inspecting every item of overburden to remind myself of what was where. I hit upon the idea of using the head for storage. The fact is that I rarely go into the head now. (Please don't cringe, but I brush my teeth at the galley sink.) This has made managing the sail lockers and V berth area much easier. I found everything in the V berth area nice and dry. (Not like the old days, eh Brenda and Arnold?) even after all of the pounding against the waves. There are 5 or 6 wool blankets all clean and folded and in plastic bags, and plenty of clean and dry clothing, particularly warm items for the cooler climates.

I pulled out the heavy headsail and the material seemed heavier than that of the blown sail, which was some high tech laminated affair. Yes, this sail had begun to fail before, but that was in the early days before I knew better when I was pushing it hard in the gale winds of winter in the Southern Ocean. This day it looked like a fine sail and who knows, with modest use it might go the distance.

At noon our position was 04N16, 15W13. I was amazed to see that somehow we had made a n-n distance of 82 miles and had gained another 68 minutes to the south. The wind was still good and the boat was pointing well to the SW. We were doing OK and I was reluctant to heave to and change the headsail. In truth, I was in no rush to use the spare headsail while we were doing acceptably well with the staysail.

I am looking forward to the prospect of the wind backing to the east as we progress south. We need to steer south because we are as far west as I want to go.

At 12.45 I started the engine for the first time in 3 days to recharge the batteries. The house bank was down to 12.3V which I consider the minimum, and the clouds had returned so that I could not expect much help from the solar panels. At 1100 rpm the Volvo meter was showing a healthy 13.5V, well beyond the 13.0V that sets off the battery fault alarm. The ammeter reading had settled down to 63A but I had come to realize that this reading does not present the entire picture. The ammeter that I look at reports only on the net current flow into the house bank. So that if, for instance, the refrigerator and other equipment are using 8A, there is actually 71A going into the house bank. But even that is not the full story because I can't see how many amps are going into the starter bank. The bottom line is that I have no doubt that the alternator, which is rated at 115A, has been putting out more than I had been thinking.

I went to the foredeck at mid afternoon and had look at the task of dropping the headsail. I would have to drop the staysail and hope that the mainsail had enough drive to keep the boat into the wind. I would then have to drop the halyard a bit at a time, mking sure that all of the droping sail was inboard. When it was down on the deck I would stow it. The wind was still blowing at about 15 knots and the sea was still up, causing a lot of pitching and rolling. I decided to postpone the operation until conditions were more favorable.

At 4 PM we were still headed SW at about 4 knots.

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