|
Lossie to Hartlepool
After our exit from the harbour we passed the Elgin Sewage buoy and unfurled the genoa heading 070 to get north of the land. When fitted the Autohelm 2000 emitted a high pitched whine and refused to steer. This meant that the watch on deck had to steer all the time. The engine was stopped at 1100 and by 1300 the main had one reef. A watch pattern of 3 hours on and 9 off was set. By 1600 all had been sick, John and I, experiencing this for the first time, put it down to something we ate between beers at the German night
We were fairly belting along and as the wind began to gust we decided to roll a reef in the foresail. The sail was reluctant to come in and the wind tore the foot before we could get it rolled. I realised that the best way to reef the genoa is to head downwind thus keeping control of the clew with the sheets and roll the sail when it forms a belly ahead of the boat in the wind shadow of the main. This has the added advantage of slackening the forestay and letting the roller run more freely.
At 1900 we turned the corner (Kinnaird Head) to head south and between noon and midnight we covered 85 nautical miles. We passed Aberdeen and Stonehaven during the night and as the wind dropped we put up the Kemp staysail and the cruising chute to rest the genoa which looked in a bad way.
A fault had appeared in the engine exhaust system which was leaking a little water into the engine compartment. This eventually reached the flywheel and was lifted into the starter motor so when the wind dropped we could not start the engine. As there was little wind and no engine we decided to pause for a photo session off Hartlepool.
|
