Morning all,
We had quite a slow night last night as all boats have been instructed to carry out some precautionary back up repair to our rigs. We went quite slow under Mainsail and small Staysail whilst we completed the repair which took from around midnight till 4am this morning.
We then stayed slow as the wind was around 30 knots and because we have been issued a directive giving maximum apparent wind strengths for headsail use and we did not want to do a kite hoist in the dark. We hoisted our kite at first light and are now pushing hard to make up the ground we lost. All boats shall have to do this so it makes us all equal and keeps the race real.
I think 12 days hard upwind in 30 to 50 knots have taken their toll slightly!
So, no sleep for me last night and now some fairly frisky kite work doesn’t bode well for an extremely restful day. I think I will echo other skippers in saying that getting the boats safely to Freo is our first priority and the rig back up repairs are a very prudent step to ensure we all arrive safely. Just in case you were wondering, the spinnakers do not put strain on the forestays so we can still push hard with them but if we use our Yankee sails we need to be conservative as they impose big loads on the fittings that have been giving some issues.
Just another normal day yachting and this is why I love this sport, it always keeps you on your toes!
Dale Out