L'Eau Commotion Westabout

6:00pm Friday 3rd November 2017 ( UTC-2 ) Here's a photo of an approaching squall around midday. It really looked quite fierce and very large so doused the main, furled the jib, set the autopilot to approximately downwind and battened down the hatches with me inside. True to form the wind quickly rose to about 25 knots then it started to pour down. And as the rain increased the wind started to ease so time for a shower for me. Then some washing as the wind became quite mild. A very good sign ,I said to myself - after this a gentle breeze from the East and I'll be on my way. Huh? Dead calm for the rest of the day. Not really looking for work I was aghast to see one of the deck mounted blocks was about to tear out. Two of the four 6mm SS bolts broken and the other two badly bent. Now this block was all that was preventing the boom from letting fly at the time the main and jib had backed and the wind was at a strength to put the cockpit coaming under water - and I was hanging on to the wheel and at one stage was in the way of the main sheet and traveller. Scarey! Anyhow it's as good as new now and with extra blocks and repositioning of the preventer further out to the end of the boom I sort of estimate the force on the block in similar circumstances will be about 20% of that occurring yesterday. There seems very little chance of any wind before mid morning so all sails and me are tucked in for a quiet,restful, drama free night. --------------060304030809040206000109--