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Free Spirit - Day 6- Half Way There



All is well on S/V Free Spirit. It's taken us a few days to get this post up because we were having so much fun rocking and rolling with the rest of the fleet in the high winds and big seas the last few days. Saturday evening and early Sunday were spent motoring south towards Hatteras to make the Gulf Stream crossing. Winds started to build in the wee hours Sunday to 20 to 25. By midday Sunday we were seeing gusts to 30. The wind stayed that way for the next three days with gusts into the mid 30's. Needless to say most of the time was spent trying to keep from bouncing off of things as we moved about the boat. Tuesday night, the fun really began when the jib furling line chafed through and the jib unfurled. It was a little too much sail, but we had no way to reduce it and didn't want to put anyone on the foredeck in the dark. We went to one hour shifts and hand steered for the next twelve hours, since there was no way the autopilot could handle it. Wednesday morning, still in high winds and seas, we steered down wind and were able to hand furl the jib half way. It was still a little rough to try to effect full repairs, so we secured it half furled. With it half furled, we were able to resume sailing and let the autopilot do most of the work. The winds and seas lightened Thursday night and now (mid-day Thursday) we have winds out of the ESE at 10 to 15. We were able to go forward and rerun the jib furling line. It's fixed and we are now ready should the winds pick up again. We're sailing along nicely, hoping for a windshift so we can steer closer to the course we need for the finish.


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