Well after the disasters of the last few days I am pleased to say that I have had a easy day at sea. After the stress of the fuel transfer yesterday I was absolutely shattered, both mentally and physically. As soon as the fuel was stowed and the boat was safely motoring north I went to bed and fell into a deep deep sleep. I needed to wake to maintain my required sked with MRCC Cape Town, but that was the only thing I needed to wake up for. So after going to bed at sunset, I didn’t arise until after the sun was up. After such a long sleep, I was beginning to feel human again and decided to tackle the day with positive attitude. There is not much that I let get me down in life and the experiences of the last few days are just bumps in the road. You can go over them, around them or through them but you always get past them. This to me is no different. I hope in no time at all this bump will be behind me and I will be able to continue sailing away.
On that note, today was a day focused on building my jury rig and starting to sail. I have to say that it is quite a lot of work building a jury rig. You really need to think of everything, as once you get it up you really don’t want to have to lower it again just because you forgot to tie a rope on... So today was one of planning and starting the process of getting my boom vertical so I can sail with my storm sails and assist my little motor towards Cape Town.
My first step was to clear the deck of all the lines and sort out which out of my chopped lines would be long enough to do the various jobs required to step the mast. I need to have a minimum of 4 ropes tied to the end of the boom and these 4 ropes will become the new stays that hold up the mast. Only in my case there is perfect placement for an additional 4 ropes to assist with the hoist. So, I will have a back stay, 2 running back stays, 2 shrouds (the side ones), a forestay and 2 running forestays. I will also need to have a halyard for the trysail and a halyard for the storm jib to pull them up. So quite a lot of ropes to sort out and run along the deck so that they are not tangling in each other or chafing on objects on the deck.
On top of this my boom has 'wings' of a sort. Metal arms that run the length of the boom and help to catch the sail when the main is down or reefed. It is a great feature for a solo sailor but mine ended up getting quite mangled in the dismasting so I have needed to remove this rail or wings from both sides of the boom. I also have some sharp bits of aluminium at the mast end of the boom where it used to attach to the mast. Tomorrow one of the first jobs is to angle grind this surface flat so that it won’t cause any further damage to the deck of my already abused yacht.
Today I have managed to get all the lines sorted and the decks cleared away as well as having the boom prepped ready for a hoist tomorrow. The swell is forecasted to be a little less tomorrow. It was late in the day by the time I finished the prep, so I decided to wait until sunrise tomorrow before hoisting the boom.
So I now have less than 600 nm left to motor/sail to get to Cape Town so I will arrive within a week. You will see that I also made a course change today to 320 True. This was recommended by Bob (METBob) as there is a little Low passing under South Africa over the next few days so I will be able to skirt around the bottom of it and keep in the calmer conditions, which is great and makes for an easier passage to Cape Town.
As it is, for now I need my beauty sleep, so I will retire but I will update you all again tomorrow with the hopeful good news that Climate Action Now has become a sail boat once again. Fingers crossed.
Goodnight
#juryrig
#capetown
#lisablair
#climateaction
