You may have been wondering why the silence and why we are not in St Martin yet?  Well, we successfully picked up our mail and a new mainsail from Red Hook, St Thomas last week and then set off for an overnight passage to St Martin on Saturday afternoon.  The wind was forecast to be SE going to SSE at 18  dropping to 13 knots and our course around 99 degrees True so we knew we would be beating but at least we should be able to sail as opposed to having to motor all the way if we had delayed our departure a day.  We set off with one reef in the mainsail and the genoa and, once we cleared the West end of St John, were making reasonable progress.  However, just after 10pm, we heard a loud noise from down below and couldn’t immediately see the cause so we reduced sail to the much smaller staysail and diverted to Virgin Gorda.  It turned out to be a wise decision as the following morning we noticed movement of the cabinetry near the starboard bulkhead and, more worrying that the deck near the chain plate was slightly raised.  As you know, the chain plates are essential for holding up the rigging so we were lucky we didn’t lose the mast!

We headed back to Nanny Cay Marina under engine on Monday and asked the surveyor, Bill Bailey, to take another look.  It was not immediately clear what had caused the issue but when we removed some of the cabinetry there appears to be further issues with the integrity of the primary bulkhead, permitting the chain plate to move up under stress.

We are now in the process of obtaining more quotes for the repairs, talking to our insurance company and considering our options moving forward.  So, clearly we will not be sailing anywhere soon and certainly not across the Atlantic this year.  We had been looking forward to meeting up with several friends who are also planning to sail ‘down island’ and also with Steve (Howard’s Best Man) and Linda and Hope’s friend, Bids and Nick in St Lucia…..

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