So, day 22!
It’s been eventful and not one to help with anyone’s superstitions. On boats, we often treat things like they are living things. I have no idea where this came from, but an extension of this is that they can try and tell you when they don’t want things to happen.
This morning, we were preparing to get our Code 3 back up after sunrise. Everything was rigged and in place, when on our final pre-flight checks, we discovered that our tack line had actually snapped before we had dropped it last. Not a problem, the kite was still flying fine and we didn’t even notice because we have chafe protection that is actually as strong as the rope, so if the rope snaps underneath it, the extra play in the protection tightens up around it and actually holds everything in place (like a Chinese finger knot but this is in fact the underlying principle to all modern rope splicing too!)It’s not something we would send a kite back up on, however. We quickly took the tack line back out and down below for repairs and decided that while we’re at it we might as well fix the halyard that had also snapped prior and had a more temporary fix in place. All of this was sorted, but because of a few complications, the majority of the watch had passed. Realizing this, we quickly got everything back on deck, organized who was going to do what and then again, just before we were about to hoist, we had a problem, somehow the kite had gone slightly overboard and was being dragged in the water, undoing our packing. So, we quickly brought it back onboard and then in the process of re-packing, we discovered a small hole close to the tack. Again, not ideal but we can fix it in situ before getting it up. Quickly we got the sewing kit and got on with it. At this point your head starts thinking about anything else that could go wrong, perhaps the kite doesn’t want to be flown? In ocean racing, these are just things you have to push to the back of your mind and get on with it.
I was asleep before we got the kite up after that, but after a few hours I was woken by a shout from Ryan: ‘All hands on deck! Where’s Charlie?’ Quickly into my foulies, as I got to the companionway, I just saw our kite streaming from behind the main at the top of the mast. The clue ring had been pulled out and the tack tripped erroneously. What followed was a long, cold and wet wrestle with the sail to get her back down, which involved sending someone to the top of the rig to attach a new line to the only corner we had control of, dropping it into the water behind the boat and then pulling it in from there. She was reluctant to get up, but once we got her there, she made sure we weren’t going to bring her down without a fight. The superstitious amongst us would be saying that the kite was telling them that it didn’t want to fly. I'd be inclined to lean into this sometimes, but a life lived in fear of what might happen is a life not lived at all. We messed around, we found out.
At the end of the day, it is frustrating. We now don’t have our Code 2 or Code 3 but (without trying to sound too cliché) we always try and focus on how well we feel we’ve done given the hand we’ve been dealt. This race it hasn’t been amazing, but I can genuinely say the crew have done everything they possibly could to keep the boat going as fast as it can, all while keeping spirits high.
So now to go through the night and for the next few days with our Yankee 1, keeping us running steady and still getting some pretty good rides down the back of the waves.
Cheers, Charlie, Ryan and the Dare To Lead team