WHEN THE HALYARD SKIES OFFSHORE...WHAT DO YOU DO?

WHEN THE HALYARD SKIES OFFSHORE...WHAT DO YOU DO?

On every passage there are sail changes and shifts that go smoothly or even better than expected...and then there are the surprises.ย  Some surprises are more or less demanding than others.ย  Our most recent surprise underway gave Captain Mike the opportunity to go up the mast in the middle of the ocean under clear blue skies over gentle 2 meter seas.

His thought was, "I'd rather see what it's like now under these conditions in case I have to consider going up the mast in anything else."ย ย 

Here's what happened:

Last week, we sailed from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus.ย  Conditions were excellent; we decided to go dead downwind and fly our Main and Jib wing and wing.ย  We poled out the jib, adjusted our course, set the main, and put a preventer on it.ย  The boat felt rock solid sliding down waves and sailing at 9-10 knots.

SV WHIRLWIND sailing wing and wing

The wind slacked, we shook out the reef and sailed for maybe 5 more minutes before we heard a "floosh"ย sound and SURPRISE our mainsail lay a limp pile on the boom.

One moment we are sailing 10.6knots...the next we lost over half our sail area and over half our speed.

After minimal discussion, Mike went up the mast to retrieve the halyard.ย  He used his ascenders on one of our spinnaker halyards and we backed it up with our second headsail halyard.ย  At the second spreaders we swapped and he was raised the rest of the way on the headsail halyard and the spinnaker halyard was his backup.ย  Now with all these halyards, where is the backup main halyard?ย  THAT and a backup mizzen halyard are now on our list.ย  Had we had a backup main halyard we could have waited to ascend the mast on anchor instead of underway.ย  Hindsight is indeed 20:20!

NOTE: While the hull was rocking in 2 meter seas, the top of the mast was swaying maybe 20' or more from side to side.ย  Good thing he loves a wild ride because at the top he had to hang on with all his might.

Once down with the skied halyard, we found that the shackle had opened, the main twisted out, and bent the shackle arms open.ย  We fixed that, reattached the halyard to the sail, raised the main.

Mike's Take-away:

"It was about what I expected.ย  The hardest thing was staying on the mast.ย  I would definitely not want to go up in anything more than that without more in place to make it easier...like maybe some mast steps or a better climbing set-up."

SVย WHIRLWIND Mike, Maurisa, Russell, & Josea -ย Alajuela 48

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THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR ADVENTURES UNDERWAY

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POSSE PERK: ๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ Free aid to navigation

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Ocean Posse member SV Whirlwind’s navigation station prepping to enter Raroia, Tuamotus.ย  Three data sets: Radar (top left), Navionics with satellite overlan (bottom left), & OpenCPN (Bottom right) with vetted tracks overlayed on satellite chart to follow safe route through the Raroia Atoll in the Tuamotus.

Open CPN is a chartplotter navigation software that allows mariners to upload multiple charts and satellites images that can be overlayed on one another to confirm what one sees (or does not see) with the chart.ย  It is a huge departure from the days of early explorers that navigated by compass, distant accounts, clouds, and stars.ย  Open CPN takes navigating to a whole different level filled with information.ย  Ocean Posse members have access to relavent Open CPN Charts and Files that aid navigation and keep vessels and crews safer on the water.ย  SV Whirlwind used Open CPN above to navigate an entrance through a passage in a reef into an atoll.

They went from this:

Outside the Atoll the open Ocean

To This:

 

Mike setting floats on our anchor chain in Raroia, Tuomotus

Bliss

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