After a good sleep we all felt refreshed and ready for a new day. Before we left the dock we did some practice attaching the foreguys and simulating some gybes. This was really useful as it allowed all of us to concentrate on seeing how this evolution really worked and by doing it really slowly we got to understand all the steps involved.
We left the dock and needed to hoist the main. They asked if someone wanted to volunteer to lead the evolution and I raised my hand. I decided not to look at my wet notes and see if I could lead this by myself. It went really well, I almost got it 100% right, I just forgot that we needed to wait until the helm had pointed the boat to the wind to release the pressure on the main before we could start to hoist it. I felt really proud to have been able to lead this evolution with almost no external help. Once this was done we practiced some gybes, they went really well given how short handed we are. We did not raise a head sail before performing them as we just did not have enough people to manage the main sail and the head sail at the same time.
After lunch we got ready to hoist the staysail. Again they asked for volunteers to lead the evolution but nobody volunteered. I am not sure how but I ended up leading the evolution again. This time everything went 100% perfect (hoisting the staysail is probably the easiest evolution). I was feeling really confident and felt that I had a good knowledge of the boat.
The wind had been rising, we were running under 35 knots with gusts of 40 knots, the boat was running really fast and you could see how powerful it is, even though we had very few sail up, just the main with three reefs and the staysail. We needed to do a man overboard manoeuvre but the sea was too choppy and the skipper felt it would be too risky for the swimmer to actually go in the water, so we just simulated it, without actually throwing bob overboard. We started the manoeuvre while sailing down wind so that we could see the procedure of bringing the main to the middle of the boat while dropping the foreguys and heading into the wind until we were able to heave to.
It was then my turn to take the helm. I really enjoyed helming under this difficult conditions, with a very choppy sea and lots of winds, I think I handled the boat really well. We dropped the staysail and the boat became very difficult to control, we just didn't have enough sail to keep a decent speed and it was quite difficult to steer and almost impossible to sail close hauled. While sailing in this way we decided to stow the Yankee III sail down below. The process of flaking it and stowing it in its bag was quite difficult given the amount of wind that we were seeing.
We hoisted the storm jib and the boat became much more manageable, this sail just provided enough power to get steering working fine again. While we were sailing back home we suddenly heard a big noise and Gavin announced that we had broken the storm jib. Broken the storm jib! Those things are supposed to be unbreakable! Gavin thought that it was probably just too old. Given that we had lost our steering capabilities again, we decided to start the engine and motor back home.
I was not feeling as tired as the day before but the day had been very windy and very wet so I was feeling a bit cold. I went down below for a short while until we were close to port and I came back on board to help drop the main sail. This was a bit complex because a lot of the sail had been hanging on one side after we set up reef two in the morning, so we had to flake the sail again starting from the very bottom. We docked in the same place as the day before, in the River Hamble.
This day I had been testing the dry suit that I had bought. It is a dry suit of the Ursuit brand and you wear it as a mid layer. The test was a complete success, it was really easy to get into and take off, no problems when I needed to use the toilet and it felt really comfortable. I was a bit worried about the neck which seemed a bit too tight when I had tested it at home, but wearing it during the day I did not really notice it, so a great result overall.
After lunch we got ready to hoist the staysail. Again they asked for volunteers to lead the evolution but nobody volunteered. I am not sure how but I ended up leading the evolution again. This time everything went 100% perfect (hoisting the staysail is probably the easiest evolution). I was feeling really confident and felt that I had a good knowledge of the boat.
The wind had been rising, we were running under 35 knots with gusts of 40 knots, the boat was running really fast and you could see how powerful it is, even though we had very few sail up, just the main with three reefs and the staysail. We needed to do a man overboard manoeuvre but the sea was too choppy and the skipper felt it would be too risky for the swimmer to actually go in the water, so we just simulated it, without actually throwing bob overboard. We started the manoeuvre while sailing down wind so that we could see the procedure of bringing the main to the middle of the boat while dropping the foreguys and heading into the wind until we were able to heave to.
It was then my turn to take the helm. I really enjoyed helming under this difficult conditions, with a very choppy sea and lots of winds, I think I handled the boat really well. We dropped the staysail and the boat became very difficult to control, we just didn't have enough sail to keep a decent speed and it was quite difficult to steer and almost impossible to sail close hauled. While sailing in this way we decided to stow the Yankee III sail down below. The process of flaking it and stowing it in its bag was quite difficult given the amount of wind that we were seeing.
We hoisted the storm jib and the boat became much more manageable, this sail just provided enough power to get steering working fine again. While we were sailing back home we suddenly heard a big noise and Gavin announced that we had broken the storm jib. Broken the storm jib! Those things are supposed to be unbreakable! Gavin thought that it was probably just too old. Given that we had lost our steering capabilities again, we decided to start the engine and motor back home.
I was not feeling as tired as the day before but the day had been very windy and very wet so I was feeling a bit cold. I went down below for a short while until we were close to port and I came back on board to help drop the main sail. This was a bit complex because a lot of the sail had been hanging on one side after we set up reef two in the morning, so we had to flake the sail again starting from the very bottom. We docked in the same place as the day before, in the River Hamble.
This day I had been testing the dry suit that I had bought. It is a dry suit of the Ursuit brand and you wear it as a mid layer. The test was a complete success, it was really easy to get into and take off, no problems when I needed to use the toilet and it felt really comfortable. I was a bit worried about the neck which seemed a bit too tight when I had tested it at home, but wearing it during the day I did not really notice it, so a great result overall.
