Happy New Year?

Dec 31 and we are heading northing towards Bahia Conception. The winds are light as we leave Puerto Escondido – around 10-15 knots and Kolby is motor sailing at a good pace of 8 knots. The winds continued to build as we progressed north, we are on a solid heal now as we head up wind. Inside Fynn and I try to play a bit and read books, but mostly we cuddle and sing songs. Sometimes we slide down the floor or look out the window at the water rushing by.  There is now 25 knots of wind and we are getting headed pretty badly once we passed the top of Isla Coronados. The seas are getting rougher too, so we decide to head into Punta Mangles, 8 nm closer than our goal of San Juanico. Asunto is handling the conditions beautifully, she feels smooth and study as she cuts through the waves. Sailing under the full genoa and a reefed main, Kolby is starting to have difficulty tacking the boat by himself. On the last tack before Punta Mungles the genoa backwinded and slammed the radar so hard it came crashing down, lucky landing on deck. I run up to steer the boat while Kolby retrieves the radar. Back in the cockpit we can see that the radar mount has been broken in half, leaving the jagged metal up on deck. Fynn sits on the top of the stairs – she knows she isn’t allowed in the cockpit in these conditions, and she cries a bit up there, but not so bad anymore. Mostly she is asking for me to come back inside. As Kolby and I bring the boat around and are trying to trim the genoa by coming up to luff it a combination of wind and wave put us on such a deep heel that the decks are submerged. I hadn’t ever seen Asunto so far over so I freak out (a bit) and Kolby takes over the wheel, as I go and snuggle with Fynn. 10 minutes from the protection of Punta Mangles we here as snap. ‘ Come up here- something has happened!’ Kolby yells. I run up again- the genoa is sagging, something is wrong! ‘Quick furl it in!’ As is furls in the sail bulges at the bottom and immediately starts to work its way out at the top. Luckily it didn’t take us long to get into the lee of the point and drop the anchor. Clearly we had to drop the sail, and quickly, before it continues to unfurl and shred itself. Dropping the sail was not so easy.

I set up Fynn down below with a movie- not wanting her anywhere near this situation. The sail was furled in at the bottom and unfurled at the top, making it into an hourglass. As we had to unfurl it before we could drop it, we had to manually walk the foot around the forward stay to unwind the hourglass. This sounds simple, but we were still getting 15 plus knots winds and the foot of the sail would whip around in the wind, it could certainly break bones if not kill you if you got in the way. Once we had it unfurled it was quick work to drop it, and even quicker work to see what had happened. The shackle had come off from the head of the sail to the furore – it was gone completely. Otherwise the sail was fine, a bit of wear but I would sew that no problem. The cover of the halyard had also frayed, so Kolby stitched that back together while I sewed the luff bolt on the sail. It was dark before we finished so we lashed the sail to the deck and waited for daylight to hoist it. We collapsed into bed, exhausted.

January 1 – Our first thoughts were to hoist the sail before the wind picked up. It took us awhile to remember it was January 1 – we hadn’t even thought to toast the new year last night. The sail hoisted without a hitch and were headed off the cover the last 8 nm to San Juanico.