Three novice sailors set out to Spain with the vague idea of sailing the
Mediterranean. Five days after arrival we sailed 111 miles to Mallorca. We then ran
into all sorts of problems getting to Ibiza. Now in the middle of our sail back
to mainland Spain our main sheet goes slack and we lose control of the boom.
Floating 10 miles west of Ephedra Island I go on deck and drop the mainsail to
see what has happened. We lost a piece to the sea. I need a flat head screwdriver.
The piece we had lost to the sea was the stop for our main sheet traveler. Lucky for us we plan to be on a port
tack all the way to mainland Spain. I took the remaining stop and I put it on
the leeward side of the traveler. I then took a screwdriver and used it as the
windward stop in the unlikely event of a tack or jibe. We need to raise the mainsail again.
Okay, let's head up into the wind.
All right, go back. Make sure you fall off to starboard. Don't tack.
The main was hoisted and we were back on course. Gradually the wind began to
increase as darkness drew near. See, we're good! We were on course to reach Javea Spain at 6
A.M. I decided that it was a good idea to reef the mainsail early instead of
waiting and having to do it in the dark. So what that means is like we got the
head sail reef so reefing is just when you remove sail. So what I'm gonna have
you do Tara is you're gonna turn slightly into the wind so that hopefully the boom
is somewhat over the deck. Not too far like we don't want to tack. I'm going to
ease the main halyard and then bring down this sail. Trying to pull the rest
of the sail into the bag.
As watches began those who were not on duty tried to get some shut-eye.
We arrived as the dawning sun broke the horizon. We dropped anchor and promptly fell asleep.
We woke up to a pleasantly protected bay and a problem.
The pulley that we used to hoist our dinghy into the water was jammed at the
top of the mast. There was only one way to fix it.
This here's the halyard for the spinnaker. That's gonna be lifting me up. It's running to this line right here which is
running to this winch here. Jackson's gonna be cranking
that up. This here is the main halyard which is the redundancy line which is
wrapped around a different harness other than the seat just in case the seat were
to give out. Tara's got this line here so she's just gonna be pulling slack out on
it and if I were to fall she would catch me and I would crush my balls.
So, let's do a little test here.
All right, now go ahead and lower. Tara you hold on. Tara's got me. Hold up, Jackson. Tara, lower me.
The rope had slipped off the roller and jammed. We spent the following hour fixing it.
♫Music Playing♫
Got it. Where's that other pulley? I think it has to do
with using it on the port side instead of the starboard side. You should be able to just
run it straight up like this. We've got one end cleated off to that cleat right
there. The other end is set out so it should just pay out nicely and then it's
shackled off to there so we shouldn't lose either end and through the pulley,
which is attached to me. So it should just pay right out nice and evenly all
the way up. Keep going up. Yep. I just dropped the shackle.
I had detached the pulley to the mast with a shackle so I took the shackle pin and I put it
in my mouth for safekeeping. Then I leaned over and I yelled at Tara, "Hey Tara!".
and naturally physics stole the shackle pin from me and I watched it plunge into
the bay below, but luckily I had brought up a second shackle as a redundant one
and I was able to make the fix, anyway.
Tara and Anika whipped up a delicious breakfast and then we practiced some mooring
pickups. In order to execute the pickup we had to head directly into the
wind. On our first attempt the wind blew off our bow so we had to circle around
and give it another go.
Killed it! Whoop!
In order to be closer to town, we headed to the other side of the bay.
♫Music Playing♫
We packed our things and left our home floating just outside of Javea.
We dropped Anika off at her new van and then we got on a bus and headed towards Valencia.
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