Telifonica Blue Leg Five Day 24

We had another big rig maintenance day. We were not happy with our so-called forestay arrangement, so it was up and down the rig several times.  On the first descent on deck David (David Vera/ESP) came with some bad news. He had discovered a crack in the rig, causing, of course, some extra wrinkles in our foreheads. So we got some good photos taken, so we all could see the extent of the damage.

Not good of course to see this kind of thing, but we saw a way to relax that area a bit more, by adding another temporary stay, this time one facing aft and even that we are concerned about it,  but we think we can keep it under control.

So the rig starts slowly looking like the Eiffel Tower, with bits and pieces of rope everywhere to stabilize it fore and aft as good as possible, but we are happy with it.

We have been sailing mainly the entire day with our small jib up, as the seaway is too nasty to put u the big Anaconda (our code 0).  It feels horrible to drive in these conditions, the speed down several knots from normal and playing with the keel angle all the time. But we quickly figured out to that hoisting our storm jib inside of the small jib, actually gave us a couple of tenth of speed. It is the old fashion way of settings sails, but since we are going so much slower the apparent wind is coming more from behind, so this little sail is efficient.

Bouwe Bekking - Skipper