I tried the spinnaker this morning, but the wind is too light and it's too rolly for it to stay full. In the ships log, at 0700 this morning is the following entry:
0700-0815: Pole in (the drifter was poled out); Drifter rolled up; Spinnaker up; Pole up (spinnaker on pole); Pole down; Spinnaker wrapped on forestay; Spinnaker un-wrapped; Spinnaker down; Jibe; Drifter out; Pole up
That is A LOT of sail handling in an hour and 15 minutes, especially with the spinnaker wrap. For those of you who don't know, a spinnaker wrap is when the spinnaker, flopping back and forth in light winds, spins around forestay. The spinnaker will billow out in the middle so that there's no way for it to naturally un-wrap. Think of a hard candy wrapped in cellophane, standing on end. To get the twists out of the cellophane, you pull on both ends. But since the spinnaker is wrapped around the forestay you can't pull on the end, the forestay won't let you. I have no idea if there's a good way to undo a spinnaker wrap, but what works for me is to jibe and wait. For some reason the action that causes the wrap is reversed if you jibe, then you just wait for the wrap to undo itself and quickly take the spinnaker down before it wraps again.
That's enough spinnaker handling for a couple days for me. I'm glad we have that drifter, I just wish it was bigger.
{GMST}27|10|N|121|13|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 24|Day 24{GEND}