{"id":324,"date":"2012-06-01T13:04:39","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T13:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/?p=324"},"modified":"2012-06-01T13:04:39","modified_gmt":"2012-06-01T13:04:39","slug":"sail-damage-in-serious-nose-dive-during-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/sail-damage-in-serious-nose-dive-during-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"Sail damage in serious nose dive during storm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Atlantic Depression<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve just had a dinner of rice with a thai green sauce and a peanut bar
\nfor desert, slowly recovering from the busy day. The gale we faced
\nyesterday left us with a few issues to deal with. We had chosen a route
\nthat kept us away from the very worst of the deepening depression but as
\nwe sailed deeper into the low the wind was steadily above 40 knots and
\ngusting occasionally at nearly 50 knots.<\/p>\n

We had been rather conservative in every step, we furled the solent quite
\nearly on when the wind was still building, unfortunately the furling drum
\nwas wrapped with a spinnaker sheet and it took a minute or two to resolve,
\nwhen it came to furling the sail we were hit by a gust and the violent
\nflogging put a tear in the leach of the sail. We havent been able to
\nassess the damage yet but hopefully it should be quite easily repairable,
\nwe just need to find a window of calm weather to deal with it.<\/p>\n

The wind built rapidly and we spent a lont time with 3 reefs in the main
\nand the staysail and still occasionally taking off massive surfs at 18 and
\noccasionally even 20 knots. We were mainly below with the hatch closed as
\nseveral waves broke in the cockpit…<\/p>\n

The sea state deteriorated quite rapidly and occasionally we were hit by
\nlarger than average cross waves. All seemed perfectly under control until
\nwe sailed down the face of one of thes monsters, we started surfing
\nalmost vertiacally until the bottom of the wave where we buried the bow
\nvery violently. Sergio in his bunk was thrown forward by the sudden
\ndeceleration but luckily was sleeping feet first and wasnt injured, the
\nwhole boat tilted diagonally and just in that instant where you think
\nyou’re about to come upright the very wave that had sent us surfing broke
\nover the boat in a thunderous roar.<\/p>\n

Eventually the boat re-emerged from the momentary sea burial as if nothing
\nhad happened, those were quite scary instants. We could have done a lot of
\ndamage but other than the fright we thought we had made it thorough
\nuscathed, that’s until I looked out I noticed we had blown the foot of the
\nstaysail, torn open by the force of the water breaking over the deck.<\/p>\n

The staysail can be reefed and luckily the damage is contained below the
\nreef point, so we reefed the sail and continue rather undercanvassed for
\nthe rest of the night. Today as the wind decreased we put the small A5
\nspinnaker and I took down the staysail to assess the damage. It’s quite
\nbad, with one meter long vertical tear starting from the foot, but i think
\nwith a little patience i can fix it, at least to make it serviceable in
\ncase we need it again…<\/p>\n

With two headsails damaged in the space of few hours I spent the day
\nneedle in hand replaying our choices through my head. We had gained on
\nPhesheya but sustained some damage, yet we had lost lots of miles to
\nCessna that seemed to be pushing through as if storms didnt affect them…
\nthat’s until midday today, Cessna had clearly stopped in the midst of the
\nstorm, covering just a handful of miles in three hours, what happened? At
\nthe next report they were moving again, ruling out a dismating but their
\naverages were not compatible with the winds they were in… We reduced our
\ndeficit to them by nearly over 50 miles over the rest of the day and it is
\nunclear whether they are sailing at full capacity or not…<\/p>\n

The race continues, we lick our wounds, we repair the damage and press on,
\na final push towards Les Sables D’Olonne. Both men and machines are tired
\nand we hope to outsail the next depression forming behind and avoid the
\nstrongest winds as its centre moves to the north, this time sailing fast
\nis the best defence, suits me, i really want to cross that finish line,
\nnow just over 1500 miles away…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve just had a dinner of rice with a thai green sauce and a peanut bar for desert, slowly recovering from the busy day. The gale we faced yesterday left us with a few issues to deal with. We had chosen a route that kept us away from the very worst of the deepening depression […]<\/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-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-ocean-race"],"views":3372,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","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=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}