Sunday 29 September 2019

We were up early to fix the problem with the jib furler.  Basically their is a drum below the level of the deck that a line winds onto as the sail is pulled out and you pull the line to roll the sail away.  The drum had become full of the furling line which meant that the last few turns went straight onto the forestay cable.  I was able to loosen the line and take the extra turns out, then all returned to normal.  The jib went back up and was furler away perfectly.  We left Porto Carallo as soon as this was done, the guidebooks had said that it was a rather underwhelming place, and they did not exaggerate. I suspect that it has been built to provide another stopping point on this east coast, but the people have not come and the infrastructure has never been completed.

As we left we found some dirty black marks on the fenders that had been against the quay, and the first task was to clean them up before they were put away and transferred the marks to the remaining clean fenders or to the boat. Once done, we started to get the sail up, but experienced a very loud bang in the process and quickly took it down again.  We were not sure as to the source of the noise and were very worried.  Our biggest fear was that something had broken at the mast head, and we were concerned for the stability of the rig.  The chief suspicion was with the backstay, and so we ran other lines from the masthead to the back of the boat to offer more support.  Clearly we did not want the mast falling down.

There was not too much wind and everything seemed still to be stable so we pressed on, round the south eastern tip of Sardinia, and stopped at the marina of Villasimius.  Here again we were welcomed warmly by 2 marinaros who were bombing bout in a small rib.  They seemed to be having great fun. Here we had a peaceful night and experienced a dramatic sunset.

Distance covered today	24	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	377	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	1430	nautical miles

Steve (and Tricia)