I liked every thing about you, except the way you treated me! 😕

I suppose you think that I'm talking about an ex-girlfriend.

I'm talking about the weather, well mostly about the weather 😉.

Today was a carbon copy of yesterday with more sun. I was again broad reaching with the big genoa up. The wind vane was steering nicely. All in all a pretty good day to be sailing, although any day sailing is a good day 😊.

About 1700 I noticed the seas building, in the 6 to 10 ft range. As I was going into the evening I rolled up the genoa and un rolled the jib. About 1800 it was looking tougher so I furled the jib to about 80%.

About 1830 the wind was building,

This is starting to sound like a Gordon Lightfoot song.

Ok back to the story... about 1830 the wind was building 20 kts gusting to 24 so I decided to have a quiet night and tie in the second reef in the main and shorten the jib a little more. After all the last thing I wanted to do was mess with reefiing the main in the dark while running downwind, can ya blame me?

I have a great reefiing system and the main halyard and reefiing lines are run back to the cockpit, so it usually pretty simple, ease the main pull on the reef line, ease, pull, etc. not pretty reefiing downwind but it works.

I started the process, eased the main, crank the winch with the reef line, but the main wasn't dropping like it should and it looked like one of the mainsail sliders was hanging up. First thought is shit, I don't want to go forward in 20+ kts but I asked around and no one else volunteered. On with the harness and tethers, clip onto the jack lines go forward on the high (windward) side. When I get to the mast I realize that the line on the luff (forward part) of the main is actually tied to the third reef cringle, not the second.

First thought was Shit!

Ok Pat, get another line to tie to the correct spot on the sail, then figure out how to tie down the back side of the sail, sure this could work. So I go back to the cockpit, grab a line work my way back to the mast just about to climb up next to the mast when there's a gust of wind and the boat gybed and buries the rail in the water and I'm not on the high side any longer.

First thought was Shit!

Spoiler Alert - I was able to get back to the cockpit safety and got the boat back on course, oh yeah, it's now raining sideways at 20+ kts.

The anti climactic end to the story is it's now dark, I'm not gonna get a second reef in, so I shorten the jib more, get the main raised back up. Do everything I can think of to flatten the main to reduce pressure and realize it may be a sleepless night if the wind doesn't ease a bit, (as I write this it's blowing 24kts). Set up the autopilot to help the Hydrovane steer and go below, to dry off and finish the beer I started before all this happened.

I still love sailing! ⛵