11/27/10 2 days at sea and a visit from a dragon

BAMM!  Zing!

Winds were 20-25knots, Waves 3-5 feets, 48 degrees and sailing happily then like I said, BAMM, Zing and we have a wild metal headed dragon flinging wildly blowing in the wind and trying to crash anything in its sight.  Well maybe not a dragon but it might as well have been.  Our jib (the big sail in the front of the boat that is about 60 feet tall and 20 feet or more at the foot)let loose and was attached at the mast top and a few lines but the bottom was flapping furiously with a whipping action. Ben went forward at which point I started the engine and put her on auto pilot so I could “help” Ben muscle through.  It looked bad from my view and there was no way I’d get in there like Ben.  so I was trying to think how to tame the dragon with out getting stitches in my head (which I did not get any stitches no one got hurt luckily, or should I say Praise the Lord)

All Ben could do was subdue the beast by hanging on tight with his big muscles, oh and that was after he had to try and catch a fast flying cable with a metal connector. There, Ben was sitting down with this big long cable that attached to our Harken furling.  Luckily again or blessed again we were happy to have a second forestay (two front cables that attach to the mast and to the boat so the mast is held up tight) anyway it was good that our mast did not fall down… well we have 4 of those cables in the middle of the deck that attach to the mast so things would be likely the mast would not fall down.  What a scary thought if it did.

Now that Ben had the dragon in his hands… now what?  The sail is so big and ridged. It is bulky and hard to move.  The sail started falling into the water as we continued on auto pilot.  We knew we did not want the sail in the water it would be impossible to get back out! So I started pulling in whatever I could muscle up.

We looked at each other and we could feel each others wheels turning in our heads as to what to do next…  then it came to both of us… let’s tie this cable down with a line to the  bowsprit. I ran and got whatever we needed… I walked the plank there matie… ok I crawled on the plank to run the line from the dragon to the end of the plank or bowsprit.  All while the boat was a bucking bronco. Success.

Ben lashed down the angry creature.  Phew! That took a very long time.  It’s like you hear about or see in the movies… boat blows cotter pin and unleashes fury.  The dragon did crash out one of our running lights, but all in all amazing no injuries and we got to get going again but this time under motor. Oh one more detail to tie up… what did we do with 60 feet of sail? Ben started lashing it to the deck and I yelled in the strong winds, “you start motoring back and I’ll lash.” Why you might ask? I know that Ben has only a short amount of time on the bowspirt without loosing his lunch and he had that look on his face.  He was happy to go and motor but the sea sickness still got a hold of him.  Poor guy. I let him take as long a rest and shut eye as needed to feel a little back to normal.

Now it is getting dark… we were so happy that broke in the day.  If that was at night??? What would we have done?  The question is did we have too much sail out for the winds?  The boat seemed to sail perfect with just jib alone.  Although for those of you that know about slow big fat boats such as Cricket – our hull speed is 8 knots but one time during the night I hit 11.1 knots!!! Yes on the gps speed.  It was a funny story too cuz it was my first night shift this time back and the seas were about 6 feet maybe more? Anyway… I had a hoot watching a big wave coming nearer and I sat on the helm and stared striaight into the waves curls – face to face- and then tried to get the boat to ride down the wave.  I hit a few perfect. I was a kid on a rollercoaster or a kid in the BWCA paddling a canoe with wind behind.  Yahooooooo! I wanted to yell but Ben was sleeping and I did not want to wake him thinking that I was hanging half in and half out of the boat.  So I was quiet.  During my watch Ben could not sleep cuz he was worried that I was having a tough time sailing and that the waves might be too much to handle… etc… He told me that and I laughed – I wanted to yell but I thought that might scare you.  He laughed I think a yahoo would have made me less worried.  Here you have Ben worrying again.  Wow he is becoming a captain after all.  His boys trip has definitely changed his thinking for the better..

I am pooped! We made it to Portside Marina in NC.  This marina is like going home.  This kind man named Denard met us in the morning. He smiled and laughed when he told us he saw our Furling all bent up.  He told us we were not the only ones these past few days with all the high seas and wind that others too have past this dock with needing repairs.

To way back up…

We left Yorktown after having a great thanksgiving! We surprised Becca and Jason with our presences.  Jason had coast guard duty so could not be with us. So it was great we went to visit him at work. Becca was going to be alone with the kids… So we went to the grocery store and bought turkey pot pies and made pumpkin pie! We played games and had a great time!

Friday we waited for the weather to turn from south to west and we made our escape out of Yorktown out the Chesapeake and to the atlantic! Just like old times except there are way way way fewer boats!!  I love that when sailing at night.  The winds piped up and away we went.  I even slept pretty good the first time… well as good as one can when you only have 4 hours to prepare food, eat, and get in and out of all my layers and layers of clothing. I slept about 2 or 3 hours each of my 2 shifts off.  Then next night as we had to motor I could not sleep, the winds were relentless and now we had to buck a head wind to get to port.  We went slower than a slow walk about 1 to 2 miles per hour a normal walk is about 3mi/hr.

It was painful and it was a test of patience! But no sleep could I get in those waves and loud engine and toss in a little worry – we made it to port about 10 am we had just spent from 4pm to 10 am motoring in winds and waves.  We were happy to get a port.

We got hooked up with a guy names Paul he is a sail maker, rigger, racer, and boat maker.  He was happy to come out and help us.  He taught us all we know about Harken Furling! We actually got it back together and working!!

And now it is finally time to sleeeeeeeeep!