Atlantic Crossing Eastward - Day 3: Nobody said it was going to be easy

Position: N 23 25. W 64 05 SOG 6.6 knots Heading 012 Magnetic

We continue inspite of a minor setback! At 1.00am last night I was at the end of my watch. I was pinching up wind in order to go behind a big tanker.. Out of the blue the boat rounded up and I assumed thid was the boat beguining to tack. We were flying the code zero (this forsail needs to be fuled in before you tack). No problem thought I "I'll just start the enjines an push us back on our heading. That worked, but s soon as I stopped the engine, the boat began to poiny into the wind again. Diotbhail came on watch and we turned on the deck light so we could see how the sail was behaving. We did that but the sail was gone!!! We found it dragging along the side of the boat it was now clear that the sail had become disconnected from the top of the mast! ALL HANDS ON DECK. We stopped the boat and managed to drag most of the sail back on deck. Unfortunately a small section was wrapped arund the saildrive (this is the bit of the boat that connects the engine to the propeller. We tried to free it but it was stuck fast. We were able to inspect the head of the sail and were surprised to see that the 10mm stainless steel cable that is used to attach the sail to the halyard had broken. This was not what I expected to see. In fact I would have been surprized to see any failyre here as I had just put new chafe protection on the Halyard. So we decided we wold let the boat drift until the morning. Fortunately, the seas were calm and the boat was quite happy.

Dinner was pasta with Prosciutto, asparagus. Delicious. Thanks Seamus. We awoke at first light and I put on my flippers and mask to assess the damage. What I found was a mess that part of the sail was shredded and there was no way we were going to be able to separate it in that swell. So I cut the sail and we hauled it up and stowed it. The net result is the top panel of the sail is shredded. I'll connect with a sailmaker in Bermuda, am awaiting a response (it is Sunday). The net of this is that we lost six hours. We resumed tinue t under main and jib at 6.30.

Later in the day we did make an attempt to retriev the halyard from the top of the mast in order to fly the Gennaker, but conditions wre too rough, so we abandoned that plan and will continue to Bermuda with the jib. This is a little alower but acceptable. We have more than 500 miles to go, current ETA in bermuda is Wednesday.

Crew are safe and well, another learning experience.