Day 10

Wayne here: Late Wednesday night, an intermediate shroud broke on the starboard side. When the crew figured out what had happened, they gybed over to port tack relieving the pressure on the weakened side of the mast, then reduced sail area until the morning when they could better assess the situation.

It appears that the starboard shroud broke at the lower spreader. The rigging on the boat is solid stainless steel rod rigging, and the entire mast and rigging had been pulled and inspected in June, so the failure is surprising and the cause of it won’t be determined until the parts can be inspected ashore.

The team aboard did a great job in responding quickly; and we got some fabulous advice from Glenn Hansen at Hansen Rigging and Chris Tibbe at Svendsen’s, which was relayed to the boat. As a temporary fix, they have rigged a checkstay on the starboard side to support the mid-section of the mast and reduced sail area.

The bad news is that their surfing days and speed records are over. The good news is that the rig is stable and should be fine for the remainder of the trip.

2100 HST 40.17 x 137.03

Winds S at 10kts, sailing at 5kts with jib only. We couldn’t hail the fleet last nite, communication was rough, had a boat to relay, felt no love! All boats east of us have north winds. We are stuck between a low and the high, wishing we could just ounch thru to the NW, but with our reduced speed that probably won’t happen for a couple of days.

We are on a broad, beam reach on stb tack, the mast is showing little S curve, from the front looking up and back at it; it looks like the port intermediate shroud is pulling the mast that side, with no tension (obviously) on the stb where its missing. We’ll ease off some port intermediate tension, and that should straighten it. If it gets lighter tomorrow we’re going up the mast and gonna try to bend the end of the broken shroud, attach a line and running it down. it would be nice to be able to sail on stb tack especially coming in to SF…

Is there any way you can airlift a case of champagne? Uh…, sorry, fuel?

Thanks and cheers, Euge