Bounced Off Me

The doldrums have scrambled the Volvo Ocean Race fleet amidst calms, squalls, and black clouds. Green Dragon's stealth move carried her to the front of the fleet, but today that lead is dwindling. And life aboard Delta Lloyd got very complicated, very quickly.

Last night we attempted a sail change to our Mast Head Code O foresail. It was pitch black and we had unknowingly fouled a halyard around the leeward upper jumper spreader.

As we attempted to get the halyard onto its halyard lock we heard a BANG. A second later a bolt hit the deck. A second later, something big crashed down. The jumper. It had broken away from the rig. It fell 90 feet. Fortunately it bounced off the deck a couple times before it bounced off me.

In a state of shock I chased the thing down ("we might need that") as it headed for the back of the boat and I nabbed it about half a meter from the transom. Our collective state of mind was disbelief. We were all thinking, “Our leg is over, we broke the rig.”

We took down the mast-head code zero and put up a fractional code zero to unload the top of the rig. At this point, we were the southern-most boat in the fleet, a position we had worked hard for two days to gain. Now we're slow and the fleet is pulling bearing on us to the west. For sure, they have their big code zero’s on while we are sailing with a fractional. I feel absolutely gutted.

However.

Marti Watts, our rigger/mast expert, must be just about the most positive-minded and resilient problem solver we could ever hope to have on board. While I took a nap and worked on a weather solution to tiptoe through the doldrums, he worked through the night on a problem that is really difficult. Consider: It takes a specialized part to replace the end fittings that broke. They aren’t parts that we have onboard as spares, and . . .

I was just up on deck to see how things are progressing, and it looks like a fabulous solution. Martin has built a ‘bracket’ to sandwich the spreader and to butt up against the mast. He has a plan for using the fittings that are already on the mast, some ratchet straps, and the compression forces from the shroud to hold it all together. Then we can sail on starboard tack with more than a reef in the main and a fractional foresail. If he can pull off this repair I am going to be astounded. He is one talented mast guru.

In an earlier missive that now seems moot, Matt wrote about the living conditions aboard Delta Lloyd in the Doldrums. For example:

The hotseat is HOT today and don’t mean metaphorically. I am sitting in a sauna. It is well over 100 degrees down below. My only option for cooling myself is pointing the small fan at my nav desk directly at my head while drinking water with sports drink powder added. The water is desalinated from the sea, which is hot as well. Neither seems to be of very much help.

Matt out