03:33.87S 042:53.85W Serendipity
Irene IV - World Adventure
Louis Goor
Sun 26 Feb 2023 23:04
George spent just over a month working on Serendipity and religiously wrote
in his journal each day. He was with them for the south Atlantic crossing
from Cape Town, South Africa to Salvador, Brazil. Here is a dramatic day in
his life aboard that splendid yacht.
Day 8
3/2/23
I had the sunrise watch from 04:00 to 08:00. We still had the gennaker up
with the poled-out genoa too. We had perfect gennaker winds varying from 14
to 17 knots. During the last two hours of my watch the wind began to pick
up, as a few squalls came over us. Serendipity seemed to handle it well and
we continued with wing on wing. At 10:30 I headed into the engine room to
fill up our big drinking water bottle using the water maker. I switched the
DV valve from "to tank" to "sample". The water began coming out of a hose
which went into the drinking water bottle. The water tanks were full, so
once the water bottle was full after a few minutes, I turned on the water
maker by opening the valve and then switching off the high pressure and low
pressure pump.
One thing about boats is that one minute everything can be going perfectly
and seconds later everything can go SOUTH. This was the case on the 3rd of
February. All five of us, Hal, Nick, Raul, Sofia, and me, were sitting in
the cockpit cruising along in perfect seas and bright sunshine when suddenly
we heard a Ping! Boom! Suddenly we all saw the massive gennaker come
crashing down into the water. We all acted fast, Nick furled the genoa while
the rest of us raced to the bow and began heaving the sail onboard. Raul
looked up at the end of the sail and found that the swivel (which kept the
sail attached to the sock) had broken, causing the gennaker to come crashing
down. Of all the problems we could have had with the gennaker, this one was
not too bad as a swivel is an easily replaceable part. It did mean, however,
that we could not use the gennaker for the rest of this passage. The real
problem came next. Before we could tidy up the gennaker and put it back in
into the bag, we wanted to put the genoa and mainsail out. Of course, the
next problem came fast, the mainsail would not unfurl. Once we looked into
the furler, we found that the motor was moving but the whole shaft was not.
This was most likely caused by the twist in the mainsail that had occurred
the day before and had put too much pressure on the shaft. The mainsail is
without doubt, the most important sail. We spent the next half an hour
piling the gennaker into the sock and then putting the sock into the bag.
While doing so, I received an accidental elbow to the eye from Hal, but it
was fine, and we carried on. We continued along with the genoa and the
staysail. No mainsail, no gennaker, 775 nautical miles to go! We sheeted in
the boom and put away the gennaker sheets. Without the mainsail for
stabilization, the waves were rocking us around more and giving us a fish
tail like movement, as our stern swung from side to side. Raul decided that
as we were two sails down, it was not that vital that two people always had
to be on during night watches. It was decided that night watches would be
like day watches - no longer 4 hours but two hours alone. My evening watch
was from 16:00 to 18:00. I was having to hand helm for most of it to keep
the boat steady. After I had cleaned the aft deck, I listened to Raul doing
the SSB call. As the clock hit 18:30, we gybed. I manned the aft guy; Nick
manned the downhaul, and Raul eased the topping lift. Once the pole was
down, we brought the sheets to the other side and then hoisted the pole
(still all manning the same sheets). Once the pole was up, we all went to
gybe the boom and then remembered the main was broken, so there was no need.
At 18:40 we gybed the boat and let out the 2 remaining sails. At 22:00 I
headed to bed in preparation for my night watch from 02:00 to 04:00 the
following morning.