It seems to be sail-week. At first we're cruising along nicely, with little wind, but SILER BLUE is doing a relaxed 5 knots under the gennaker and we're enjoying the endlessly changing shadow-images on the sail.

Yes, and then that's it with sailing: no more wind!
So we start up the engines and putter across the pacific. We've got lots of diesel left in the tanks and fill in an additional 90 liters from canisters - a good choice since we don't get any wind in the next 3 days. We make the best of the flat sea and go for a swim in the pacific.

On Friday morning a little wind starts to stir so we get the gennaker up. But it wasn't meant to last long. Obviously it didn't take the pacific swell too well. Due to the high waves and only little pressure in the sail it constantly slackens and gets filled again with a sudden push.

Anyway, at 9am our beautiful sail already has a tear near the seam, so we take it down quickly before it tears all the way.
There's nothing we can do about it with our on-board tools, but we still have the spinnaker.

That sail has seen a lot in its 9 years, but it still working just fine. We have to shorten it 3 times, because a year old tear keeps reopening, but under the spinnaker we're doing great, 6-7 knots.
Yes, until Saturday evening, as the wind gets stronger. We're just on the radio exchanging the latest news with other sailors on the pacific, as we hear a loud bang. The spinnaker tears completely, horizontally and vertically, and flies into the water.
That's the end of our spinnaker. Obviously it was a little old …

We limp along with just the foresail, only doing 4 knots. Using the main sail wouldn't help since the shrouds pointing to the stern, don't allow it to opened up enough.

But we still have another 500 miles to go and don't want to limp around like this. So we try something new. On Sunday we hook the spare foresail next to the foresail and lean one to the starboard side and one to the portside - and, there you go, we get a wonderful trade-wind-sail.
And with that we make 7-8 knots. That's really fun.