Imitate the Albatross

Our sail back from Port Pegasus gave a good impersonation of Southern Ocean sailing - two reefs in the main, booming swell behind us, and hell bound for glory to get around Shelter Pt. before the tide turned.

It was a great day.  We did beat the tide around Shelter Pt., and so pulled off the trick of keeping both flood and ebb behind us for the whole day, and the healthy breeze got us all the way back to Port William, within easy striking distance of Bluff.  

The only down side was a big one.  While shaking out the second reef after rounding the point, I managed to rip the mainsail right at the luff.

I was spewing-mad at myself.  We've owned Galactic for two years, and this was the second time that I've ripped the main in the same way - while cranking on the halyard with a reef in, I think I'm having a hard time getting the sail up because the wind has the sail pressed into the shrouds, but in fact one of the luff cars is stuck on the lazy jacks.  I crank too hard, and rip the sail.

At first I despaired, as we are completely out of my favorite sail repair aid - quick set 5200, the strongest marine adhesive product on the planet.  Whatever the merits of Australia as a nation, they have not discovered 5200.

We managed a pretty good fix anyway.  I'll give a shout-out to Dan Neri's The Complete Guide to Sail Care and Repair (Beowulf Press) - it's an expensive book, but it taught us to repair our sails, which is one of those things you just have to be able to do when you live on a traveling boat.

After we had the sail fixed, a shy albatross dropped by, hoping to scavenge a meal.

The bird hung around for about half an hour - long enough for the boys to work on their albatross imitations.

Pretty good likeness, no?

~~~

Next: going way down south...