Chafe, a Sailor's worst Nightmare
I don't mean it in the way that you are all thinking of right now ... I am talking about rope chafe.
We sailed for a continuous 48 hours with our A4 (spinnaker) in the air and when the time came to peel to our favorite code 0 (reaching sail), we realised our halyard strop only had two strands left..... this could have been bad. Having a sail fall out from the sky is never a good thing, particularly at night.
We sent our bowman, Al Fraser to the top of the rig to investigate the reason for the chafing and whilst up there he made the most of it by taking a few holidays snaps (see attached).
We have started our own splicing school on board following this incident. Al Fraser has been teaching the Murphy girls the basics of whipping/splicing (apprentices ???) as well as making a new lock strop so we could be back to 100% and able to peel spinnakers.
As I write this, we are sailing under A2 in 10-12 knots of wind and beautiful sunshine - a nice respite after all the cloud of the last few days.
Romain Mouchel
Aegir Captain
I don't mean it in the way that you are all thinking of right now ... I am talking about rope chafe.
We sailed for a continuous 48 hours with our A4 (spinnaker) in the air and when the time came to peel to our favorite code 0 (reaching sail), we realised our halyard strop only had two strands left..... this could have been bad. Having a sail fall out from the sky is never a good thing, particularly at night.
We sent our bowman, Al Fraser to the top of the rig to investigate the reason for the chafing and whilst up there he made the most of it by taking a few holidays snaps (see attached).
We have started our own splicing school on board following this incident. Al Fraser has been teaching the Murphy girls the basics of whipping/splicing (apprentices ???) as well as making a new lock strop so we could be back to 100% and able to peel spinnakers.
As I write this, we are sailing under A2 in 10-12 knots of wind and beautiful sunshine - a nice respite after all the cloud of the last few days.
Romain Mouchel
Aegir Captain
