Unqiuely Singapore seems to be labouring under a spinnaker curse over the last two days as we have had constant major repairs to make to our light weight kite. On Wednesday evening we had been sailing along with the kite up happily for a few hours when Watch B accidentally wrapped it around the inner forestay. Cue 3 hours of unwinding and 4 trips up the mast to sort out twisted halyards before the crew managed to free it again. Sadly this was not to be the end of our troubles with the kite as a few short hours later an enormous rip appeared, severing the kite in two pieces horizontally before stripping itself away from the tapes all the way from the head to the foot. We ran forward onto the bow and dragged the kite out of the waves but it was obvious to all that this would be a BIG repair job! The repair, which took 12 hours, was carried out over Thursday and there was much cheering and happiness when the final tape was stitched back on by Rachel, Sally and myself at about 8pm last night.
After a celebratory bean stew and apple pie we turned in for the night, looking forward to getting going again with the kite this morning.
HOWEVER, the trouble does not end there! This morning we popped the kite back up the mast, it unfurled beautifully and for a brief moment it seemed that Uniquely Singapore was back in business. This illusion was then shattered as a new rip appeared, this time all along the foot of the spinnaker and we had to drag it out of the sea once more. So, state of play now, on Friday morning we are once again back at the sewing machine with a big old patch to put on our poor kite!. *sigh!*
Lauren x
