Leg 3 – Day 11 - 11th December
Posted by Della Parsons on Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Leg 3 – Day 11 - 11th December
After 3 days of constant flying, the guy on our spinnaker gave up the ghost today and went 'pop'.
It's probably the longest constant spinny run we've had without anything giving up, so we kind of knew it would happen eventually.
I was off watch at the time and sitting in the heads when I heard it go. On leg one there would have been panic in the air but now – for us RTWers at any rate - our reaction was 'oh that'll be the guy then!' Being only 16 crew I knew we were a bit short handed to deal with this so I hoiked up my shorts, grabbed my lifejacket and arrived on deck toute suite to help with the take down...only beaten by Jeremy who was also off-watch and had dashed up on deck in a similar fireman-like fashion! We got the sail down smoothly, hoisted the yankee, followed by the re-rigged pole and then gybed the yankee – all pretty well as a matter of course. It was another testament of just how far we'd all come from our departure in Hull nearly 4 months ago and so very far from my complete ignorance of sailing just over a year ago. I was left with a very warm glow of satisfaction ad pride. Clipper were actually making sailors out of us – and a pretty darn good team of sailors at that!
The afternoon was spent fixing the broken guy, checking the halyard for chafe and as the sailing was much easier and the weather more hospitable, Katy opened a hair salon and with the aid of Brett's clippers, did a shearing job on most of the guys heads! Considering she'd never done it before all the guys were either very brave - or stupid – but on viewing the end result we all declared a new star hair-dressing was born!
After 3 days of constant flying, the guy on our spinnaker gave up the ghost today and went 'pop'.
It's probably the longest constant spinny run we've had without anything giving up, so we kind of knew it would happen eventually.
I was off watch at the time and sitting in the heads when I heard it go. On leg one there would have been panic in the air but now – for us RTWers at any rate - our reaction was 'oh that'll be the guy then!' Being only 16 crew I knew we were a bit short handed to deal with this so I hoiked up my shorts, grabbed my lifejacket and arrived on deck toute suite to help with the take down...only beaten by Jeremy who was also off-watch and had dashed up on deck in a similar fireman-like fashion! We got the sail down smoothly, hoisted the yankee, followed by the re-rigged pole and then gybed the yankee – all pretty well as a matter of course. It was another testament of just how far we'd all come from our departure in Hull nearly 4 months ago and so very far from my complete ignorance of sailing just over a year ago. I was left with a very warm glow of satisfaction ad pride. Clipper were actually making sailors out of us – and a pretty darn good team of sailors at that!
The afternoon was spent fixing the broken guy, checking the halyard for chafe and as the sailing was much easier and the weather more hospitable, Katy opened a hair salon and with the aid of Brett's clippers, did a shearing job on most of the guys heads! Considering she'd never done it before all the guys were either very brave - or stupid – but on viewing the end result we all declared a new star hair-dressing was born!
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