A wicked kite ride and a busted spinnaker

A kid’s birthday party on the other side of Antigua and only 4 hours to get there? Not a problem for Paikea and her crew. It’s a typical day in the Caribbean with some fresh trade winds making our downhill ride from Green Island to Jolly Harbour an exciting one. With a top speed of 17.8kts we had some great sailing but it was certainly challenging given that we still only have one rudder. Paikea was a bit skittish with our only rudder on the windward side, which meant that Shayne was on the helm for most of the trip trying to prevent the boat from wiping out due to cavitation around the rudder.

Frankie’s Last Ride

We’ve heard there is a birthday party in Jolly Harbour for a little girl who is cruising with her family. We haven’t met many other kid boats especially while in the Mediterranean so we are super keen to join in the celebrations. The only issue is that the party is on the completely opposite side of the island and we only have 4 hours to get there before the party starts. Can we do it? It’s going to be a bit of a “send it” down the coast shesh.

This video shows how our family sails Paikea. So if you’ve got kiddos interested in sailing get them to have a look at this one. Our little crew is awesome!

The ride was awesome …17.8kts top speed but the casualty of the day was our beloved Frankie, torn in half after a bad gybe in tricky conditions.

So far our tally of broken equipment stands at:

  • the rudder
  • Frankie the fractional kite
  • a folding propeller with a couple of broken teeth
  • a headsail that is starting to fall apart

Well, they do say cruising is just fixing boats in exotic locations.

If you saw our soft shackles for our spinnaker blocks and want to try to make your own, we have some free resources on our website https://youngbarnacles.com/free-resources-2/

2 thoughts on “A wicked kite ride and a busted spinnaker”

  1. so glad you med it in time to rock the beach with Lotta and all the other 13 boat crews. What a day to remember.
    Cu soon in Europe
    Christian from Lady Blue

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