Day 8 Always something to be fixed

Boat captain makes trip in locker
Although Mark said that cruising means fixing your boat in beautiful places, it is clear that it also means fixing it almost all the time. Here are two examples of fixings under way.
Being a good boat captain means hearing every sound that is unusual. While the rest of us may hear these sounds when they are pointed out to us, Mark will wake up out of a sound sleep whenever the normal boat sounds change. There is a strange noise around the helm. We spent over an hour emptying the aft lockers so Mark could crawl in with a flashlight and see if anything was amiss.
Following that, he put on his snorkeling gear, tied a rope around himself and went over the transom to inspect the rudder and prop. We put the boat in a position called “heave to” to lower our speed and steady the boat’s movement but even in this orientation, we were still making several knots of speed so we made sure the rope around El Capitan was good and snug. Losing your captain is considered bad form in the sailing community.
Upon re-boarding he reported a minor looseness in the rudder that made a slight noise but would not create any hazard. He also said the being pulled through crystal clear water that is thousands of feet deep is really awesome.
A second problem we tackled was chafing on the lines that reef the main. Mainsails are equipped with a means to partially pull them in (or reef them) in order to make them smaller when the wind is very strong. On Star, this is done by pulling on a line that is attached about 15% of the way up the sail. By pulling in this line and dropping the top of the sail 15%, the sail has less area and the boat leans less. This was the proper set-up for the strong trade winds but after two days of sailing in this orientation we noted that the reefing line was being chafed by the boom. If the line broke when the wind was really strong there would be a sudden and very large force on the mainsail, boom and mast. Under such an impact, you can imagine what bad things could occur.
Mark rigged a temporary line and pulley arrangement to take the load off the reefing line and still allow us to have a reduced area sail.
Boat Bites. Imagine being in a small room cluttered with furniture and having the room rocked quickly back and forth by 30º. Eventually, you and the furniture collide. The points of collision are usually elbows, shins, ankles and knees. Once the first collision occurs, Murphy’s law takes over and all subsequent collisions will always strike the same body part. Try stubbing you toe sometime and then walking around barefoot. Although it could have been years since you had stubbed you toe the last time, from now on, you will stub your toe at least once a day and it will always be the same toe.