{"id":148,"date":"2011-12-30T10:56:51","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T10:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/?p=148"},"modified":"2011-12-30T10:56:51","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T10:56:51","slug":"rogue-wave-23kt-surf-ends-in-crash-gybe-and-broken-mainsail-battens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/rogue-wave-23kt-surf-ends-in-crash-gybe-and-broken-mainsail-battens\/","title":{"rendered":"Rogue wave 23kt surf ends in crash gybe and broken mainsail battens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So here we are in yet another 45 knots stinker, making excellent progress
\nunder staysail and reefed main, occasionally surfing high teens. The front
\ncame and went and we were left with that nasty situation where you have
\nmassive seas and decreasing winds… increasing sail area would keep you
\nsurfing on rails, but the waves are just too big and you have to wait…
\nthe boat slows down and you surf some waves then skip a few then surf
\nanother one.<\/p>\n

I was in the cockpit, standing and watching the majestic waves, a bit
\npreoccupied as they were steeper than in the past days, although we are in
\nvery deep waters well away from the Tasman shelf the sea is confused as
\nthe usually uninterrupted flow of southern ocean water masses is
\nprobably disturbed by the proximity of land and shallower waters to the
\nnorth. Some of the wave crests were breaking heavily. Just as i stood
\nthere a massive wave with a very steep front lifts our stern, i could only
\nhold on and watch the boat speed surge past 23 knots in what felt like
\nvertical free fall. At the bottom of the wave the wind cut off almost
\ncompletely shadowed by the wall of water behind us, both headsail and
\nmainsail flapped powerless and we gybed gently but, almost immediately, as
\nthe wave caught up and lifted the boat from trough to peak the full force
\nof 45 knots of wind slammed the mainsail across, the square top had
\nflipped to the other side of the runner and as we crashed gybed again,
\nthis time very violently, i could only watch powerless three battens
\nheld captive by the runner snap and one batten pocket rip open…<\/p>\n

No time to cry, i woke up Hugo and we got to work, lowering the mainsail
\ncompletely and patiently removing the three broken battens, easier said
\nthen done when they are broken in bits inside a pocket… we cut the spare
\nlong battens we carried tied to the rail to measure and got the job done,
\nit must have taken us a good hour whilst the boat was still being tossed
\naround a lot…<\/p>\n

We now gybed north again as the wind is due to increase further still and
\nwe want to get out of the worst yet to come in time… until the sea state
\nimproves we decided to take the 3rd reef so that in the event of another
\ncrash gybe hopefully less sail area will prevent further damage.<\/p>\n

1250 miles to go and believe me, i really want to get there, this is
\ntiring and frustrating especially after 29 consecutive days at sea…<\/p>\n

Another job on the repair list, new battens, spare battens, repairs to the
\nmainsail… i wish i could say it could have been easily prevented, we
\nalways have to find the balance between speed and risk, for days we got
\naway with this sail configuration in similar conditions, today one wave
\nwas enough to cause substantial damage in the space of a few seconds…<\/p>\n

So, this is another occasion to thank profusely all those of you who have
\nmade donations to our racing funds through www.marconannini.com\/help<\/a>, in
\nthe past few days, I will get a full list of names and email addresses
\nonce i get to Wellington to thank you individually but we have raised an
\nincredible 4225 pounds towards repairs, you have all been absolutely
\nwonderful, family, close friends as well as strangers who have been
\nfollowing our progress over the weeks.<\/p>\n

A special thank you to Mark Blomfield whose contribution was
\nparticularly generous and came on the eve of Christmas and lifting the
\nspirits on board and the outlook for the Wellington stopover repairs.<\/p>\n

Unsubscribe from this newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 So here we are in yet another 45 knots stinker, making excellent progress under staysail and reefed main, occasionally surfing high teens. The front came and went and we were left with that nasty situation where you have massive seas and decreasing winds… increasing sail area would keep you surfing on rails, but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-ocean-race"],"views":3814,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}