We're now well past the halfway point and I have a few minutes free this afternoon to contemplate our journey so I thought I would update our followers.   We left Saturday afternoon from Brest and we're due in (assuming nothing changes... more below) some time Saturday evening.  The trip has been fun, but not without its challenges.   I'm happy to say that after the first few days, we all got into the watchkeeping routine as expected and we're all fully adjusted to life at sea.  We take three hour watches at night and four hour watches during the day.  The person on watch is responsible for keeping a lookout for other vessels, monitoring the wind, the sails and the overall condition of our boat while the others sleep (or write blog posts).  Seth has even been sitting on watch as well, helping out Guillemette and me.  

After a few days of queasiness (and meds), we're all now fully adjusted to the motion of the boat (although I did experience a bad bout of the head-spins while typing at my computer the other day).  This was one of our primary concerns with going around the world on a boat, having heard that some people just never get over their seasickness.  Well.. (knocking on wood)... that doesn't seem to be us!  Guillemette has even been cooking in the galley as the boat bounces up and down, side to side, in the current cross swell.  

This is our first bluewater passage and we've been taking the opportunity to figure out how to manage our sail plan, including how to deploy and use our spinnaker pole.  Now, this is not your ordinary spinnaker pole.  This is a 23 foot (7m) long pole, bigger than many one-design boats that we've all sailed!  So we must carefully consider any maneuver we make with it.  We learned that our Blue Water Runner (our principal downwind sail) sails quite well with the pole on the windward side, allowing us to sail stably dead downwind to as high as 30 degrees higher.  We also learned that the pole is too long to successfully use with our genoa when broad reaching, which bums us out since we thought it was sized appropriately for it when we ordered it (and in fact, we received a shorter pole than we originally specified!). 

We had the BWR up overnight on Tuesday night.  It is a very stable, safe sail since it is flown without a mainsail.  This means that it works in a wide range of wind angles without requiring constant adjustment.  But our BWR met its end prematurely yesterday afternoon.  We were having a beautiful sail downwind in 18 knots of breeze when the BWR tack line came apart.  This almost 1/2" thick piece of cable is attached in a loop around a stainless-steel fitting using a high-pressure crimp connector that seemingly was assembled with less pressure than required, leading it to fail.  With no tack point on the sail, the sail flew free out in front of the boat on the two sheets (like a symmetrical spinnaker).  

You might wonder what we did with 240 sq meters (that's 2500 sq ft!) of sail billowing in front of the boat.  This is one of the places where many years of racing on many different boats came in handy, as we had many experiences in dousing symmetrical spinnakers (ok, not quite as large).  We took our time and meticulously planned the douse.  We used our engine at full revs to motor forward as fast as possible (to reduce the apparent wind in the sail) then deployed our mainsail in order to create a wind void (blanket) into which the BWR fell.  It was then "pull, pull, pull" as all of that sail cloth was gathered up on deck and shoved below.  The crew did an amazing job of it and the sail didn't even get wet.  Chris, being a bowman at heart, led the charge, with Guillemette back in her old role of the pit (controlling the halyard), and Paul and Seth working hard to pull the sail cloth into the boat.  The alternative could have been catastrophic -- with the sail "shrimped" in the water pulling the mast over (we were prepared to cut the sheets and halyard and let it go, if necessary). 

Ironically, a few minutes after the sail was recovered, while catching our breath and allowing the adrenalin high to fade after the sail was down, the 2:1 halyard block decided to leave us, splashing into the water and effectively ending our ability to use our other downwind sail, our Code 0.  Apparently, the swivel isn't designed for the kind of load that it experienced as the sail was floating out in front of the boat.  Fortunately, it decided to depart when it did and not earlier, as the sail would have definitely wound up in a mess had the halyard given way!

The sailmaker quickly assumed responsibility, promising to effect the repair and replace the other components that were damaged as a result of the failure, all in time for our Atlantic crossing in mid-November.  (our fingers and toes are crossed!)

And in other news, our promise to the crew of daily fresh water showers went up in smoke on Monday when the watermaker began smoking while running.  This machine is wonderful to have onboard as it produces 144 liters of water per hour, more than enough to keep everyone clean and hydrated by running it only a few hours every other day.  But when the device's manufacturer doesn't tighten the internal wiring harness sufficiently, resistance builds up in the power circuit.  And resistance creates heat, which causes carbon to build up, creating more resistance, and more heat.  After running about an hour, all of that heat led to smoke.  We quickly powered down the circuit and after letting everything cool off, we took off the cover to find a fried power circuit.  We made an attempt at a repair but the circuit breaker itself was fried.   The good news (yes, there always seems to be some good news in any story) is that we left the dock in Brest with around 1000 liters of water and had managed to make around 140 liters before the smoke was noticed, so we're sitting here today with roughly 48 hours of sailing time and a full 665 liters of fresh water in the tank.  So today will be shower day all around!

Paul is an intrepid offshore fisherman so we asked him to help us get set up for our travels, as there is nothing better than fresh fish for dinner!  He enlisted Seth as his tutee and helper and the two of them found the best fishing store in Brest to stock up on lures, lines and other equipment needed.  We decided to hold off on fishing for the first few days (until everyone got into the rhythm of the sea), then held off fearing that catching and cleaning a fish would tax our scarce fresh water supply.  But now that we're in the home stretch, Paul and Seth have deployed their lines and we're hoping for fresh fish for dinner!

That’s about it for the moment.  More when we get in to Madeira!

Saltair

Paul and Chris enjoying a beautiful afternoon.

 

The crew working on our first open water sail change.  Swapping out the Code 0 for the BWR.

The BWR flying with a pole on the windward side.  Tough to get a sense of scale from this photo -- it is bigger than most one bedroom apartments!

Oops!  Houston, we have a problem!  This sail is designed to be furled, not doused on deck.  But without the tack attachment, there's no furling to be done!

Which meant that we needed to douse it on deck.  I grabbed this pic mid-douse once we knew that catastrophe had been averted.  

Tough to get a sense of scale from this shot.

A bit better sense from this one.

The offending component.

The next best thing to the BWR... poled out genoa with small bit of overtrimmed main (to keep it off of the spreaders).  

Seth sporting a new hair style.  We haven't seen that face in years!

Guillemette finishing up her early morning watch.

 Why we do this!