Each day brings us something new. The shipboard joke about heading to Tonga was getting stale and had been replaced by our now heading to Niue. The winds were refusing to shift from the South.
Early afternoon the winds died to almost nothing and we ended up motoring for a while. But this didn’t last long and the winds resumed from the WSW, right behind us where they’d been for the last couple of days. Forcing us further and further east.
To gain a better heading, at one point I put the boat wing on wing which is not my favourite point of sail. Everything ran well for about an hour until we were hit by a squall that came out of nowhere. I’d already tied down the head sail and main to minimise the effect of any accidental jibes. These preventers did their job as the wind shifted violently and rose to nearly 30 knots apparent (nearer 40 true) as we flew away from the squall. The preventers also prevented us from getting out of the wing on wing straight away. I managed to release the head sail preventer and put us onto a port tack (now on our way to New Caledonia). On a broad reach that gave us a breather to remove the main preventer and jibe again to put us on the best course to Fiji which was of course somewhere between Tonga and Niue.
Soon after the winds finally shifted around and on a broad reach we were on our way to Fiji. Later, after dark, we discovered somewhere in all this we had bent two of the main batons and the sliders attaching the head plate to the mast had also broken. By now the winds had picked up and we had a reef in the main. We decided we were better off doing nothing in the short term. During my 11pm to 1am shift the winds picked up considerably requiring me to put a second reef in the main. Because of the earlier damage I had to be extra careful. It seemed to take an age to do it all right. By the time the cause of the extra winds (another squall) had passed I was exhausted. When the winds eased we were again heading to Niue. At the time I felt demoralized. We were struggling to get to Fiji and the mainsail was damaged.
By the end of my shift we were again pointing to Fiji. I went to sleep considering our options.
By the morning I decided we needed to bring the main down, fully assess the damage and attempt what repairs we could. We woke Sam up to help as he was on next and Paul joined later. We furled the head sail, dropped the main then put the head sail out again to keep going. The top two batons were indeed snapped in two. We duct taped them together and reversed them so the stresses would be in a different place. The two sliders at the top of the main had also both broken. Fortunately I had a couple of spares which, with Sam’s help, I replaced. To get the top of the main back into the slider we had to remove the remainder of the sliders and install them all top to bottom. In a marina this is awkward. In 3m seas it was a pain. But we managed it.
Now the mainsail is up again with a couple of curious kinks where the top two batons are broken and taped. Better still the wind is in the right place and we’re sailing to Fiji. We have about five days of good winds ahead of us so fingers crossed, no more drama. There is a front sitting over Fiji which we may encounter in the day prior to arrival. But that’s a future problem. We’ll think about and deal with that when we’re closer.
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