Friday 25 October – What a night!

I’m writing this on my midnight shift. The wind has picked up and coming from behind us. At the moment we have Sporty spice up but I have to wake Rowan up if the wind stays over 20 knots …. it is keeping me on my toes hovering just below! We are on course to arrive at Opua NZ tomorrow late afternoon in some nasty weather which will be a little testy. Last night went well we had no more squalls and we all had easy shifts.

Today’s highlight was seeing an Albatros spotted by Phil, what a huge bird, we didn’t see it for long, no photos I’m afraid. We have never knowingly seen one at sea before. Just read that nearly half of the world’s 22 albatross species breed here in NZ.

Otherwise it was a day of form filling, I’m getting our Biosecurity plan filled out, but we need to take some photos of the hull when we slow down and get to calm waters. Otherwise it is a case of  ……….

……… cut off mid sentence as the shit hits the fan! The wind was over 20 and getting more uncomfortable so I went to get Rowan who luckily was lying awake wonderig at the new movement. We tried to get Sporty down and no matter what Rowan did the furler got jammed. I had to wake Phil up and with life jackets on, and harnesses to tie on to the safety straps around the boat, they went up front to sort the sail out. In the pitch dark it is so good that we have the brightest Spreader lights, appropriately named. It really was pandemonium for a while. They tried to get the sail down but rope to the top got bunched up in a knot and now with the full weight of the sail there was no other option but to cut it loose. The sail was now totally unfurled and furiously trying to escape from Rowan and Phil with it’s vicious ropes smacking about the deck. We managed to get the boat de-powered and they finally got the sail onto the deck, with a lot of brute force. Thank God Phil was on hand. With the sail in the forward locker and everything stowed away, we could all breath a sigh of relief. My shift was nearly up and Rowan was running high on adrenaline, I did see him do one spectacular lift off with the sail, but thankfully he was well secured and safe. I went to bed and about 40 minutes later I could hear another big commotion, Rowan had woken Phil up, as the auto-pilot has stopped working. Good planning of Rowan’s meant that all we need to do is flick a switch to get our back up auto-pilot working. It can only be controlled from the outside helm station, but still an absolute godsend in the dark and wet!

What a night, we are back on track and making slowish progress with the wind behind us, the jib back out and a reef in the main sheet.

While the sun is out and conditions look ok, we get Scary Spice out for about 15 minutes!

A view of Scary from the navigation station

Wind from behind this big squall was hunting us down, we avoided the majority of it, but it did clean a lot of salt off the helm stations and windows which was a bonus