Amadeus - Amadeus mast walk

No wind, time to blog.

Have you seen Alex Thomson's mast walk? Seemed fun, why not try something similar :-)
On the second day, just after we finally agreed on the tactics, in absolutely ideal sailing conditions I wrapped the gennaker around the forstay. When I tried to engage the autopilot we run into a lull and due to a momentary lack of concetration, it just happened. Have you ever had such a situation? If the wind fills the sail on the wrong side, it is not easy to resolve. There was no chance to arrange from deck. I climbed up the mast. The wind started to increase immediatey and the little swell swung the tip of the mast meters from one site to the other. It was not possible to wrap it back to the right side so after a good hour of wrestling I decided to cut it down. I was lucky enough to pull in the 240 m2 gennaker full of wind and cut the sling just in between the sail and the brand new spinnaker sock. My crew fished the spi out of the water. I only had to remove the sock from the forstay. Seemed easy, took an hour. Climbed back totally exhausted. We were unbelivebly lucky, neither the sail, nor the sock was injured, not mentioning the safety of the mast or the crew/boat. And this is just the second day :-)

Tamas
Amadeus HUN-12214