Bolero - Day 10

Day 10

Oh what a night! We all think it was the most challenging night for those sleeping down below. We were sailing down wind, always a rolling point of sail and the chop made the motion of the boat very uncomfortable. Ian also suffered the indignity of taking a glancing blow to the neck by a flying fish. He managed to find the fish in the cockpit in the dark and throw the fish back into the ocean.

We all jokingly commented that we withdrew the comments we made yesterday about enjoying the passage! Breakfast and a cup of tea made life much more manageable!

We set about the repairs to the mainsail. The top half of the mainsail was brought down to the deck. Nick and Ian drilled new holes in the headboard and attached the slides with long shackles. Maz and Gwyn patched the 20cm rip in the sail with self adhesive sail repair tape. We really hope that the patchwork of repair tape holds out for the 700 miles that we still have to go. We shook the reef out of the mainsail. All in all, the main repairs took 2 hours out of the morning, including the drum roll distance time……

One benefit of us all being on deck is that Bolero was totally cleansed of flying fish….. 10 were thrown overboard, the smallest being 4 cm and the largest 10.

The working party was rewarded with scrambled eggs and prosciutto and an opportunity to catch up on a little sleep.

As the afternoon wore on, the cloud increased and we were in the realms of the shades of grey paint chart. We even had the odd drop of rain.

North Star radioed to say that they were gybing, we confirmed that we would soon be doing the same. They say that practice makes perfect, our gybes are getting faster…..there are just so many pieces of string on the boat when the boom is secured with a fore and aft guy and the Genoa is sailed on an additional sheet from the usual sheets.

Bolero is balanced on a starboard gybe with the poled out Genoa to port. This gybe means that we do not have an uncomfortable motion from the waves.

A dinner of pasta and pesto with mozzarella cheese.

The night watches began at 19:00hrs.

Fair Winds
Nick, Maz, Ian and Gwyn