We had two bits of excitement in the past 24 hours - an encounter with Kiwi Rescue and a minor hardware failure.
Yesterday afternoon the wind piped up. We were putting a reef in the mainsail when the VHF radio started squawking. The only word we caught was "EPIRB" - which stands for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. Basically, you only set it off when you are in deep doodoo and need outside assistance. I picked up the handset, gave our boat name and position, and stated that we were standing by to help. Kiwi Rescue responded, and asked us to keep a listening watch on channel 16. I told them how glad we were that they were out there, and that we would stand by on channel 16. A few minutes later, we heard a loud engine and then a grey four engine turboprop swooped down on us to check us out. After the flyby, Kiwi Rescue called us back to confirm some information about
Mata'irea and crew. They then informed us that another boat was closer to the position of fishing vessel in trouble. As much as we feel duty bound to help someone in trouble, I can't say that we weren't relieved that someone else would be providing assistance to a vessel 60 miles to windward of us.
This morning, Sten noticed that the inner forestay was loose. He put on his harness and went forward to find out what was wrong. The inner forestay quick release mechanism had opened and then unscrewed. But luckily it wasn't a big deal to fix, as he found the turnbuckle loose in the bag containing the staysail, which is hanked around the inner forestay, and quickly reattached it.
Yesterday afternoon the wind piped up. We were putting a reef in the mainsail when the VHF radio started squawking. The only word we caught was "EPIRB" - which stands for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. Basically, you only set it off when you are in deep doodoo and need outside assistance. I picked up the handset, gave our boat name and position, and stated that we were standing by to help. Kiwi Rescue responded, and asked us to keep a listening watch on channel 16. I told them how glad we were that they were out there, and that we would stand by on channel 16. A few minutes later, we heard a loud engine and then a grey four engine turboprop swooped down on us to check us out. After the flyby, Kiwi Rescue called us back to confirm some information about Mata'irea and crew. They then informed us that another boat was closer to the position of fishing vessel in trouble. As much as we feel duty bound to help someone in trouble, I can't say that we weren't relieved that someone else would be providing assistance to a vessel 60 miles to windward of us.
This morning, Sten noticed that the inner forestay was loose. He put on his harness and went forward to find out what was wrong. The inner forestay quick release mechanism had opened and then unscrewed. But luckily it wasn't a big deal to fix, as he found the turnbuckle loose in the bag containing the staysail, which is hanked around the inner forestay, and quickly reattached it.
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