In the afternoon the wind really went down to 3 Bft and did want to go up again. Thus I considered it as the chance to finally fly the Big Blue for the first time.

We prepared all. The tack and the clew were attached, but the control line for the sock was still coiled up and not in my hands because I tied the sheet to the clew. The wind going into the lower part of the gennaker was enough to push the sock up without pulling on the sock control line. This was a very bad but also a nice surprise. The nice surprise was that the friction of the sock material and the gennaker is so low that the sock just got pushed up. The bad surprise was that my control line flew high up in the air.

There was chance that you could hear me using 4-letter words!

How to get the Big Blue down without the sock control line?

OBM was at the helm station and steered MaRe the way I needed her to get as less power into the Big Blue, which enabled me to pull the trigger to set the tack free to get the power fully out of the Big Blue. When I then pulled the sheet I could get it down. By all these movements the sock control line got uncoiled and we could douse the gennaker easily. The aforementioned low friction really is nice.

Having now the sock control line under control, I attached the tack again and pulled the sock up. Not much effort was needed. Excellent!

But! Then the “but” came. The control line is too short by some meters. I could just hold the control line in my stretched arms.

Was it Doyle NZ or the US sock manufacturer who made the mistake, I don’t know. I’m just disappointed. Before I’ll hoist the Big Blue again I have to extend the control line. By some meter. I estimate the extension should be 10 m.

When the gennaker was flying I could briefly enjoy its nice color and the name “MaRe” in the center. It smoothed a bit the disappointment.