Having a good time sailing off into the advancing twilight of another gorgeous tropical afternoon, all is right with the world and feeling great, preparing for a good night’s progress to Manihi. Jumping on the port tack, his cutwater effortlessly cutting through the slightly turbulent but slippery water, he knows he’s making a good impression and, slightly annoyed, he doesn’t have a gallery of onlookers who recognize his elegance. His crew appreciates the show, but recognition from others would do wonders for her self-esteem: she likes to show off as much as the next ship! Pride always comes before a fall and without warning and certainly without prior knowledge on your part or the crew, a thunderous crack breaks the calm of the night. His captain and his sister crew run up the ladder to see the Anglo’s crew looking skyward at a lazily swaying starboard mid-shroud. It has broken in the upper tang of the crosshead, it has fallen in the middle of the ring and now it falls to starboard.
Horrified, her crew stares at each other. Having heard and read many stories of yachts losing their rigging at sea, thousands of miles from the nearest shipyard, due to rigging failure, they are speechless for a few moments. The scene before their eyes spells disaster if they can’t come up with a solution quickly. She moves her head through the wind and towards the hove to position herself. She is very sorry but she doesn’t have time to worry about it now. Fortunately, the weather is mild and her crew determines that as long as they remain on port tack, the port side rig will be under considerable strain. The equatorial darkness is upon them now, so they secure the swinging end of the starboard lifelines and plan to prepare another shroud in the morning. After an immediate meltdown, she returns to her course, cautiously picking up speed again with no apparent problem.
‘Ugh, that was complicated,’ he thinks. Maybe she will get out of this relatively lightly?
With his head bowed and serious, he now wants to lose his head from his previous wave of vanity. Over an obligatory cup of coffee to calm their nerves, her shocked team discusses the problem. Firstly, Manihi Atoll, which is sparsely inhabited and therefore unlikely to be of any help, is removed from the itinerary. Its course is modified to Rangiroa Atoll, which has the largest population in the Tuamotu. Fishing is the main source of income for most of these atolls and that means there will be boats, ropes, cables, wires galore – sailors are the same the world over! By their second drink and with their minds more settled with reasoned thought, the main implications of the problem seem to recede for the time being. Since all things being equal, most of their sailing will be in port tacking all the way to Tahiti, where they know all things maritime is available. They’re hauling a considerable length of wraith rope, and it’ll be turned into a replacement shroud tomorrow. This Spectra line has an even lower stretch factor than Kevlar and if it can be stretched long enough over the spreaders and deck fittings, it may be enough until they make landfall in Papeete.
When Mother Nature is in the frame, nothing is the same. She carries out her vocation at her discretion. Running a Weatherfax printout shows no alteration in the weather pattern anywhere in the ocean they sail in, just consistent SSE trading all the way through this sector. However, an hour after his mishap, a cloud covers the night sky, obscuring the stars. The wind that picks up recedes, bringing with it the rain, and our little boat is buffeted continually. Suddenly it’s like a storm, with winds up to thirty knots and it’s likely to come from any direction. Thirty minutes after these conditions, the captive steel hoop breaks free and begins a wild arcing pattern amidships. Its main target is the mainmast and every few seconds this eleven-millimeter-diameter steel punch wants to embed itself in the aluminum crossbar. The spike originally attached to the end disappeared long ago into the sea with a loud hiss, leaving a deadly steel bar bent on penetrating anything in its path. Aluminum, wood, or a skull wouldn’t make any difference, as all would accept the flying projectile to a depth dependent on their own physical strength.
Her mainsail had been released earlier at the beginning of the storm attack, and she is sailing only under genoa, so her sails are not in danger of being damaged. How to quickly secure this churning missile and survive before it wreaks havoc? With a deck now choppy, her skipper, wearing a lifejacket and hooked to the jack line, hurries to port. The crew, shining the spotlight in the general direction through the rain, watch the glistening wet shroud flicker back and forth across the beam; they are grateful to still be in the cabin. His captain, ducking and dodging at the same time, tries to catch him as he swoops past.
By the time it reaches the end of its arc to port, it’s too high anyway and out of range, so plan A won’t succeed. By now, he has already hit the mast many times, fortunately not always head-on. The crew, seeing the black shape slumped in the port scupper, think it has either given up or been hit. He gets up again, this time with the loose port halyard in his hand and, after several misses, manages to catch the point in the loose halyard, pass the line around the steel as many times as possible, tighten it and fix it to an eye of the ship. port side pad. Job done, he straightens and slinks back into the booth, grinning from ear to ear. No doubt he now thinks he’s a hero, not realizing it was a fluke: the shroud caught on the halyard on his way spinning wildly. However, the chance of any additional immediate damage being removed, she is happy, allowing her to bask in his thirty seconds of fame. Tomorrow is another day, when the options will be examined, but for now they are waiting for comfortable bunks. They are packed, leaving the rest of the watch crew to ponder what might have been.
Swaying gently from the top of his mast, his captain surveys the scene around him. A brilliant tropical morning, swept cool and clear by overnight rain, leaves a sparkling image. Three hundred and sixty degrees of perfect, brilliant blue disk surrounds her, holding her permanently captive, dead center. Turning her head, she marvels at the shocking extent of it. Endless, like a woman’s love, the blue ocean seemingly stretches on to infinity. The upper canopy is unblemished except for several harmless, fluffy thunderclouds that dot the horizon in the southwestern quadrant. Probably hovering over some distant point of land, but being so far away, she can’t be seen on the horizon. Otherwise, a wide canvas of broad shades of blue, lightly brushed with bright flashes as the sun reflects off the tips of the waves in the light breeze. No camera, restricted as it is to a small window, will be able to capture the overall uplifting feeling of seeing and being a part of such a scene. Filled with a quiet joy at being alive, her captain turns her head back to the job at hand. At dawn, as she had this morning, on a beautiful calm day with only a slight breeze off the stern, her captain had decided to climb the mast to see what could be done about her wandering shroud. He would also inspect Miguels’s stamping on his forestay.
‘A waste of time even looking at that!’ she says, ever practical, ‘good or bad, what do you think she could do about it here?’
Human nature being what it is, there was no way he wasn’t going to be lifted to the extra height of the truck for an inspection. Aside from anything else, that’s as high as he can get to her and he’ll go there! Normally at sea, a trip up the mast would only be contemplated in an emergency. Five degrees of deck movement translates to a fifteen to twenty degree arc up here. It is imperative that the mast is securely braced between the climber’s thighs to prevent swinging and hitting the mast. These young men who make a career around the world, climb in all climates, without a doubt the courage of youth drives them. One becomes a little more careful with age.
Miguels’ engineering masterpiece is, of course, flawless and he feels a surge of affection for this mustachioed man and the product of his craft. Three thousand five hundred nautical miles in his wake, working hard he’ll be still. Drinking in the sight, lingering as long as possible without the crew on deck getting suspicious, distracted (it’s a twenty meter drop to the deck!) or just leaving him up there, he calls the deck to be lowered into the spreader intermediate Clipped to his belt is the wraith line, and in his pouch is a replacement spike. Looking along the entire length of the rope to the deck, he is momentarily fascinated by the convoluted turn he takes from near the mast to the sea. With his woven blue and white diamond pattern, he looks a lot like a very long and very lazy python, snaking up to the rear!
‘Come on,’ she checks him, ‘get on with the job!’
It is relatively easy to double loop the Spectra cable through the spigot, hook it into the mast keyhole and drop the two loose ends down to deck level to attach to the deck fitting. On the way down, check the leather covers on the end of the spreader for wear. Back on deck with several skin burns on his inner thigh, the results of which are deposited somewhere up and down the mast, the episode is shared over a cold beer. You can’t rush these jobs at sea!
Thoughts of lazy days on those distant, but ever-closer, fabled South Sea Islands, spurred them on, and their Anglo-Saxon captain and crew set about lowering the jury rigging deck as taut as their strength would allow. combined. With no blocking and tackling system available to work in this situation, they will have to rely on sheer physical strength. This is quite considerable in the Anglo-Saxon crew, but your captain’s contribution will be somewhat insignificant in comparison. Being on the starboard side, the slack side, they are amazed at the degree of tension they are able to impose on the brute. Even the strain with her twin mid shroud on the port side is not so much of an issue now, as having a rig in place that will keep the rig upright without breaking or collapsing. In fact, the product of their efforts admirably preserves this premise all the way to the port of Papeete. Meanwhile, the arrival of a plate of steaming buns lavishly topped with blobs of bright yellow butter that quickly melts mid-operation undoubtedly injects them with enough hairy-chest drive to drop that required extra pound or two.
‘Men!’ she thinks, ‘they’re so easy!’
The entire assembly, without too close inspection, looks in fairly good condition. Still, he’s tough enough for fair to moderate weather, and his crew admires his clever work from their cockpit. Both she and her captain pray that the trade winds hold up to Tahiti.