The 25 mile dash from Barentsburg to Lonyearbyen turned into a major production. Snow Dragon poked her nose out of the Grone Fjord and found herself in over 35 knots of wind on the nose and snowing. It was rougher than anticipated and we quickly turned around and headed back to the protected area of Barentsberg and evaluated our options. Kirsty and Eivan had a flight to catch and we did not want a little thing like wind to get in the way.
Since going out with a stay sail and triple reefed main was too much sail, we decided the storm stay sail was the next logical solution. After getting the bright orange storm sail up and the dinghy out of the davits and on deck, we were ready to try again.
Once out we quickly realized that Snow Dragon could not point high enough to windward with such a small sail. Instead of risking being blown out to sea we went back to our anchorage and waiting six hours for the wind to calm down to a sensible level. It did, just barely, and we were able to get Kirsty and Eiven to Longyearbyen in time for their plane.
Kirsty, Elvar & Krystina sleeping on the trip to Longyearbyen.
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