Position 03°46’796N 011°54’662W
Hi dear friends, thank you for following my journey. Here’s this weeks update.
As we enter week fourteen of our journey and it’s been quite a week. Pinta has had a bad week but this is not surprising really as we have covered over 4,000Nm in three months, that equivalent to around three years sailing for the average yachting back in the UK
Hindrance to our plans. Firstly and the most serious was a broken forestay, now for those not into sailing i will explain what is and what it does. The forestay is the wire right at the very front of the mast leading down to the bow. It’s role is to support the mast and prevent it from bending backwards. However this decided to part (break) in Thursday afternoon (13:00hrs (GMT)), now luckily for us the wind was light with on 12-14kn of wind however we where close hauled, i.e. sailing tight to the wind. We managed jury rig a temporary replacement using the spinnaker, spinnaker pole and Genoa halyards.
You could see by the look on Peters face when ordered up to the top of the mast for a quick visual inspection he was not impressed but then out here we have to do and cope with whatever is thrown our way.
This has a major impact on us for we cannot now sail for Cape Town as planed because it would be unfair to push her too hard into 20+kn of wind and sea with this temporary rig so instead we are heading for the Ivory Coast albeit at 2.7kn to carry out repairs. Spare’s being arranged as I type this. We estimate about 2-3 weeks stay before carrying on out journey.
Secondly the gimbals on the cooker has finally warn away. We have blocked it up for now and will carry out repair’s when we are in port.
These problems although a hindrance to our plans they were expected and as such our plans always remain fluid after all we are in no hurry, we have no real commitment to be anywhere so lets just get on and enjoy what we have when we have it.
Well that’s if for now I hope all of you are ok, take care of yourselves.
Fair winds, calm seas.
David.