Silver  Fox's Log

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The Fox's journey log and photos

The Maiden Voyage (or how to deal with jammed roller-reefing!)

Future trips will be recorded in our blog, after all 4.5 miles down the coast is hardly rounding the Horn; however our maiden voyage deserves some space!

Having formally taken ownership of The Fox on February 6th 2007 we needed to vacate the former owners mooring in the very fashionable Puerto Banus. We allowed ourselves a couple of days to check over that the Fox was actually seaworthy and would get us a few miles down the coast to the nearby Marina of Bajadilla at Marbella.

With most of the basics checked, we set sail late in the afternoon on February 9th in a good blustery Force 6 or so, coming in from the West.  Joining Mags and I on board was Mario Zancan, our good friend  and host, who lives on the Costa and has very kindly provided us with a place to stay more times than we can remember.

Mario had never been on a yacht before and may never do so again.

As we headed East under engine,towards Marbella, for what was the briefest of delivery trips I decided, against the wishes of the crew, to unfurl the genoa. Mags quickly shook out about 60%  - before the roller reefing jammed  - so we made it fast at that, whilst I checked out the reason for the problem.

There was nothing obvious and we were making a good 7.5 knots according to the GPS so I decided that we wait until it was time to take the sail in and worry about the causes of the problem another time.  Unsurprisingly when we decided to take the sail in, the furling was free for a couple of turns and then it jammed again. So then we played games alternately trying to get the genoa fully in or fully out without any success.

Assuming a falsely nonchalant manner,  I sat in the cockpit to consider the options. The first two that came to mind didn't seem very attractive.  Cutting down the sail would leave us £1500 poorer, but the second alternative of entering the marina and mooring with the sail flying, in what was an increasingly strong wind, could easily work out more expensive still...

 Then I had one of those lateral thinking moments. Often on a night sail, alone on watch when close hauled, if one of us carelessly let the jib back and couldn't get it to fill again, the standard procedure was to bear off, jibe and do a full 360 turn until the jib was filling again back on the correct course. It avoided going about and all the associated noise that would wake those off watch and could be done safely single-handed. 

The only tell tale on hand-over to the new watch was the number of turns the ensign  had round the jack-staff! 

Employing the same technique we sailed the Silver Fox round in circles until the jib was fully unfurled and then dropped it.  QED:Problem solved!  Didn't look too elegant from the marina I bet, but effective nonetheless.

 30-minutes later we were safely tied up in our new home just as the  light failed. 

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