Last night didn't go exactly as planned, there were two incidents worth mentioning. First was that when I changed headsails shortly before dark, the halyard worked loose and \i had to climb the mast up to the first spreader to get it back. Unfortunately it is still entangled in the rigging so I had to use the spare halyard. And then, at 0230 when the wind build and I wanted to put a reef in the jib, a wave broke over the bow (where I was sitting), I heard a loud bang and I found that the whole forward hatch had gone!! This left me with a hole in the deck of 50 by 60 cm, and a breaking wave every ten seconds. As quickly as I could I reefed down to minimum sail area to avoid the water breaking over decks, then I wrapped the jib over the hole to cover it. At first light, I set about to make a temporary hatch cover out of one of the floorboards, At 7, the hole was closed as good as I could. By that time the whole boat was soaking with water, and me seasick. I continued to go rather slowly to give the sikaflex some time to cure, and by now it looks pretty watertight. It only leaves me without one of the floorboards (that had to be precisely cut to fit, which under the circumstances took me over an hour), and a perfect opportunity to break my ankles.

Bart

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