Forestay Drama

on the 3rd day, we are able to get off the wind and our downwind leg begins. At the same time, the wind seriously picks up and our first afternoon/night under spinnaker will be in 25 knots of sustained breeze and heavy unfriendly swell. It is also our first time surfing the waves. I take the boat to 14.44 knots. I can't remember Nathans record.

I feel good. Driving in that kind of condition requires to be focused and awake but it is so fabulous to see the acceleration the boat is capable of, despite the weight. Elise is just flying away and we start eating up miles. At night after my first watch, Nathan asks to stay on watch (he will pull a 10 hour watch which i will make up for during the day). I look at the conditions with envy but it is only too obvious that he is having a ton of fun zipping along. I felt that he deserved it after all the work he put into the boat to get her ready for this so I say 'ok so long as you are awake enough to be on top of your game'

We are in 2nd position at the morning checkin on day 4 and we both feel that under no condition, we will take the kite down. We had upgraded to France, the heavier kite for the night and that turned out to be a good choice. We are happily trucking along when in the middle of my afternoon watch, I hear Nathan say
'do NOT round up. If you do, we lose our rig'

Our headstay had just popped loose and had fallen on deck. We were downwind and under spinnaker so there was plenty of pressure on the mast. For those who are not familiar with how the mast is kept up, there are 4 main actions: the forestay keeps it from falling aft, the backstay from falling forward and the shrouds from moving laterally (more or less...). If our headstay had broken during our upwind leg, we would have lost the mast.

As is, we immediately pulled the jib halyard and secure it to the tack fitting with a knot. Nathan, as the skipper, took charge and demonstrated great leadership. He ordered the kite down so we could also use the spin halyard to replace our missing forestay. We also used our spare external halyard and the topping lift. We use the spare pole to apply a lateral compression force on the mast.

When checking the mast step, we notice that the pin that is holding the mast to its base was gone. We had a spare 0ne but we couldnt put it through as the holes were now misaligned. We were worried that the mast step was move and eventually take the mast down.
Nathan drilled a hole into the deck to put a padeye and used a hose clamp and galvanized wire (see picture above) to prevent it from moving forward.

after that, we took some time to rest. This happened late afternoon and we were both tired. We decided to continue under main only for the night as everything gets much more difficult in the dark and revisit things in the morning. Of course, from a race perspective, a lost night is a lot of distance...

the wire just broke...

the pole used in compression against the mast