Yes, he did it! A solution for the twins!! Two U Bolt through mast head, attached to which was a 12mm eye bolts to which a block was attached.

Winched up the mast, Bob made the repairs and those monoliths flew once more – until this day, that was. Only hours into daylight disbelief swept through us as we heard that wretched new fitting going the way of the first. Thanks to the continual movement these fittings, unable to cope with the pressures, became work hardened too.

The major bonus was that having previously undertaken the procedure of hauling the twins back on board, this time saw the process being a piece of cake.

For the time, the twins remained down until upon arrival at our anchorage in St Helena, Bob went back up, fitted a dyneema loop to the mast head and connected a block to that so that we would have a strong but flexible headstay attachment once more.

With the problems the setup has caused us time and again we are now considering the feasibility of changing to a fixed second genoa on a permanent stay with furler to the masthead.

One bonus of sailing these seas to St Helena was the radio tunnelling effect as we noted that the VHF radio range had markedly increased and so did the AIS reception range. We were receiving ship AIS data from as far as 100+nm away and listening to Namibia port control from a distance in excess of 150nm away.