We finally caught our fish for the return trip. This morning, after the genoa furling line repair (more on this follows) at Phil’s urging Davey put out the cedar-wood lure. Within fifteen minutes we had a bite! Davey and Phil struggled manfully to reel in the 44-inch Mahi-Mahi, but get it on-board they did. We gave it a drink of rum, and then Phil sliced it into many fillets (now in the refrigerator, until dinner). Afterwards, John and Phil swabbed down the cockpit with salt water, removing all the incriminating evidence (or did they?).
In comparison, the events of the previous 24 hours are fairly uneventful. After completing the genoa furling line replacement yesterday, at the start of his 10:00PM evening watch Paul noticed new chafing on the new furling line. We quickly brought in the sail, avoiding the mayhem that would have been caused had the furling line broken. We sailed (slowly) all night on the staysail again, while pondering potential solutions to the line problem, since we had no more spare line of the appropriate length and diameter (having used it all in the previous repair). In hindsight, we should have determined what had been causing the chafe, but we have our reasons/rationalizations.
At first light, we looked at the furling line, saw where the chafe was happening, and discovered that while the cover of the new line was chafed badly, the core (which carries the load) was still in decent shape. We were able to slide the cover to overlap in the chafed area, and siezed (with a needle and sail thread) the repair. This created a small lump in the line, but it was still able to travel through the blocks (pulleys) that lead the line from the cockpit to the bow. By noon we had the genoa flying, and an inspection revealed no obvious chafe-points. The increased boat-speed was a welcome change, at least until we were reeling in the fish — we slowed down by easing sails and pointing into the wind for that operation.
Our current position (2:20 PM PDT, Aug 1) is latitude 35deg 53min N, longitude 158deg 34min W. We are sailing at 5+ knots, heading 27 degrees true (towards the northeast). The weather forecasts continue to look good for our passage through the northern edge of the Pacific High and towards home. Winds are about 10 knots from the east-north-east.
Until tomorrow,
VALIS