Non-stop work

Hi All,
 
What a day so far, its been complete action from dawn till now at 5pm when we are sailing steadily under full main and the Kingdom of Bahrain spinnaker.
 
Dawn was stunning as you can see from the photos. After taking a couple of pictures it was time to gybe, moving the stack of equipment from one side to another and then gybing the sails. At this point I changed from the fractional 0 to the repaired A3.This all went well for a couple of hours before a weak front arrived, dropping the wind from 20 knots to 8 knots and making the seastate feel much worse, and causing the sails to slat around badly.
 
I noticed the defect in the repair on the A3 was just getting a little worse with the seastate, so I used the lighter winds to partially furl the sail and drop it to the deck for a preventative repair. Of the 370m of sail there was still at least 250m flapping around and so it was no easy task to get it down on the deck without going in the water or getting wrapped round the stays.
 
By this stage I was thinking that a full crew would be handy, as it is a constant round of going to the bow, to the cockpit and back again ceaselessly to do the sail changes. Actually our mast and sails are the same size as the Volvo 70s, and I have 10% of the manpower!
 
Next job, to go up the mast to look at some chafe on the lower shrouds. I got all rigged up with the climbing gear, and went half way up the mast level with the damaged section of shroud. It did not look too bad at all, I would just need to put some tape on it. But how to get 2 metres out from the mast when I am getting thrown around? I had brought a boathook with me to snare the shroud and pull me out but I realised that I could get left swinging a long way if I let go, and holding onto the stay would be no easy task. I was getting banged around enough just holding on to the mast. I was starting to wonder how I could do this when I tried putting my feet on the mast and trapezing off it, I could just reach the shroud, so working horizontally, with my back to the deck, I wrapped the tape at arms length around the shroud. It was a good ab workout!
 
The boat’s motion was getting more and more violent as a windshift had made the autopilot steer more into the swells, so I was glad to finish the taping and descend to the deck, only slightly sore in my legs from getting thrown around the mast. So job done, the tape should stop the sunlight getting to the PBO fibres that are inside the shroud.
 
Then it was time to put up the spinnaker, which felt like a piece of cake compared to the other challenges of the day. Going up the mast is not my favourite pastime, with a crew I am always willing to do the winching to get someone else up the mast. But I feel really pleased to have done it, just hope it's not too often. Must keep mainsail battens off the shrouds, write 100 times!
 
Apart from the sunrise the other amazing natural sight was to see a pod of about 30 pilot whales, all packed closely together. They had white bellies and dark backs.
 
That’s all for now, it's time to make a very late lunch and tidy up all the equipment from today’s activities, to be ready for the next sail change.
 
All the best from Bahrain Team Pindar
 
Cabin temp 20 degrees,  Sea temp 13 degrees at 3936S 1441W.