(Brian Luster is a fellow nautical blogger and author of the excellent blog A Movable Bridge. Brian took part in the big Asian leg of the 2005-2006 Clipper Race. The current race is taking place right now and the crews are in Asia as I write this –Adam)
(Day 25) To the top: 49 00N 152 38W
We’ve finally gotten the level, downwind sailing we expected based on our review of the North Pacific pilot charts. For the past 40 hours we’ve had our heavyweight spinnaker up. The top boat speed I achieved while helming during the past couple of days was 13.5 knots, but Duncan managed 15-point-something while surfing down a wave this evening.
When we fly a spinnaker, we always attach two halyards to it—the working halyard and a backup. Periodically, we swap these so the wear and tear on each is equal. This afternoon, when we went to swap the halyards, we noticed that one of the blocks at the top of the mast was no longer attached to the mast by its strop. Instead it was hanging from the backup strop attached to the other halyard block.
Someone would need to go up and reattach it. Duncan had been up the mast two times in the past two days and gotten banged around a bit. Glenn went up yesterday and had an unpleasant experience involving the reappearance of his lunch. Lizzie also went up yesterday and managed to remove a bit of skin from her little finger. Joff, the skipper, turned to me and asked if I’d like to go up. I was stupid enough to say yes.
I put on the climbing harness and hard hat and tied on the halyard that would be used to hoist me. The trips up and back are pretty scary, with a lot of swinging around, looking for things to hold on to. Sitting on the spreaders to take a rest is nice and almost relaxing. There’s much less swinging around at the top, and it would have been fine if I could have relaxed and sat in the climbing harness instead of holding on desperately with one hand while trying to do the repair with the other.
I managed to reattach the block and added a backup strop to the other. Then I paused to look around at the Pacific Ocean from 95 feet above the water, going about 14 knots. Water, water everywhere.
Our boat speed is now 10 knots on a beam reach, we’re back to the usual 20-degree heel, and it’s raining. But somewhere around day 21 I realized that I am, in fact, enjoying this.