A TOUGH START - N25 59.38 W20 46.46
OOJAH's AWESOME ODYSSEY
Peter & Christene Tanner
Thu 29 Nov 2012 12:54
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Having crossed the line in aroud 6th we made
rapid progress down the West coast of Gran Canaria in rising wind & heavy
showers. By the time we had got both reefs in we'd lost 5 battons from the
sails. During the night we had to completely drop the main with over 30 kts wind
over the quarter. The sea was about as rough as I ever seen it with breaking
rollers attempting to engulf us from behind & Oojah scurrying along as fast
as she could to get away from them!
We put 195 nm into the first 24 hours & the as
the wind eased got a spinaker up. However when we took thhe
spinnaker down for the night we noticed a small horizontal tear in the
leech of the main with the potential to spread rapidly. The main came down for
the night & we're now trying to patch it for light air use later on.
Everybody has worked really hard over the last 24 hours despite not feeling so
good. There is a sense of disappointment that getting in by 14 dec for
Grif to catch his aeroplane now looks really difficult, but there's a
spirited effort to find work arounds & we've had the spinaker up with no
main this morning. Everyone sends their love to all - let's hope the
weather gods are a bit kinder over the next
fortnight.
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