Having thoroughly enjoyed Norman, we decided it was time to go back to North Sound and settle back for the rest of our free mooring time – and frankly to get some down time, reading time, fixing up small stuff time, looking at the moon time – well you get the idea. But our sailing pixie had a mischievous grin. Shoulda known. Wind was from a reasonable direction and P was all excited about the 0.5 knot to 1 knot speed increase we were seeing in the winds with the new folding props. They made a significant difference in the lighter winds. It kind of got our fine little sailing condo on water from the speed of a Clydesdale up to a frisky carriage horse – still a ways to go to make Arabian or thoroughbred – actually I don’t think that is even possible, but we are not here to race but be comfortable, and Blue Sky does that well.
So happily laid back with speeds wandering between 8 and 9 knots in 15 -20 wind close reaching – life was great. At least until the gunshot sounded followed by the whale hitting our boat. Well I exaggerate a bit but that was the first impression. Actually it was the D shackle casting off its pin and contorting enough to release the boom from the mainsheet which flew to the leeward side of the boat, stopping abruptly as the blocks on the mainsheet all gathered for a conference on our bimini (with significant damage from the abrupt meeting) – it actually did sort of feel like we hit a whale or something. P kept his calmly and loudly shouted “something broke” – ohhh my, just brilliant!
To shorten the story up a bit, boat was brought under control, sails doused, situation assessed and we headed to Roadtown for repairs after determining the spare D shackle was too big. Unbelievably, being a cat, the expired D shackle was still on the Bimini when we arrive in Roadtown.
Sailors, bear with me a bit. The sailing community has all sorts of interesting terms, almost a secret language, so that the non sailor reading the above might as well be reading ancient Greek. So I will digress and do some explaining while talking about some of our “challenges”.
D shackle – a piece of very strong stainless steel to connect something to something on a boat. As you can see, it is shaped like a D and has a pin that screws in to allow you to open the D to attach stuff. In our case, the miserable excuse for a D shackle on the right at one point tied a mainsheet block to the boom. Oh dear.
Main sheet – the line (rope to landlubbers) that connects to the boom (metal thing at the bottom of the main sail) which allow a sailor to move that boom and thus the main sail to be aligned with the boat or to be almost perpendicular to the boat so that you can maximize your sailing performance depending on the wind direction. No main sheet attached = no control of the sail (bad).
Leeward – the side of the boat that is closest to the water (on a monohull) or where the wind appears to be coming from the other side of the boat (monohull or catamaran) – also known as the least likely to get a massive amount of saltwater spray in your face (any kind of boat).
Windward, the side of the boat that is not Leeward and a bit breezy and damp.
Blocks – some people think pulleys. For our purposes the same thing – ropes go around wheels ending up increasing your mechanical advantage.
If you look at the photo of 3 things to go wrong, the green line going back along the boom to 3 blocks at the far left is the main sheet. I you blow the photo up a bit you will see that the top block attaches through a shackle to a line attached to the boom. That shackle went to shackle heaven mashing the 3 blocks at the end of the boom into each other and allowing the boom to fly out – no so obvious in this photo with everything pulled in tight and no mainsail up, but use your imagination.
The 2 other things inferred are other failures. At the very back of the boom you can see a line going up. This is called the topping lift – I guess because it “lifts” the boom so it doesn’t hit your “top” or in our case the bimini. In the middle of 45 knot winds and 13+ foot seas, our topping lift chaffed through the line that attaches to the boom due to a manufacturing flaw in the D shackle (sharp edge). This had the rather nasty consequence of sending a piece of metal wildly flailing about at the end of a 50 foot line in heavy seas trying to punch holes in our mainsail or anything else it could take aim at. King Neptune must have intervened on our behalf because when the seas moderated to 12 feet and 35kts and I ventured up top, it had tightly wrapped itself around the lazy jacks (those little lines you can see at the top of the photo that hold up the blue sail cover. The bad news is that without the topping lift I could not drop the mainsail (which I badly wanted to do) without having the boom beat the hell out of the bimini (also not good). So we sailed forth and survived.
Number 3 failure is a small little pin seen on the boom in the lower right of the folder. Without the pin you cannot control the size of you mainsail (called reefing) and are thus in a very dangerous position in high winds. You also lose control of your mainsail (called an outhaul). The gods were merciful in a round about way. On a routine daily inspection, I discovered the outhaul was almost chaffed through. While trying to sort out why, I discovered the cap on the pin holding it in place had decided to take a swim despite my and a professional riggers attempts to identify any weak points in the rigging. It was missed. As I said, we were fortunate in that the pin only came partially out and nothing separated. But now I have to have a pin fabricated and the outhaul replace. Oh yes, it was brand new but was put in to a track on the boom that it was not in before (2 tracks available). Result was that there were sharp edges on the boom causing chafe (cutting) on the outhaul that almost separated it. Thanks goodness that didn’t happen.
Last in this long post is the clutch. No, not a hen’s clutch but a device that acts like a brake on a line (aka rope) seen at the left. So the little spring in the clutch at the far right in the first pic decided to abandon springiness. In the second photo you can see the clutch removed and the little piece that goes inside ($25 west marine, $70 in BVI). So without the little spring, what happens? Well whatever the line the clutch is holding starts free falling so to speak. In our case, the genoa (sail at the front of the boat) started getting wrinkly, then shorter and shorter until it was about to become a mess. P diagnosed the problem and we cranked the gennie back up and resumed sailing but consumed a winch to do so. P is now expert at removing clutches (hates silicone) breaking them open, replacing pieces and remounting. Skills are improving every day.
So this is a long post. Lesson is that if it can break it will. Coastal sailing is a whole different world – a few fixes a season. Although P read in many books the challenges of ocean sailing, the reality seems to be coming to roost in the form of foolishly sticking P’s hand in the fire. Ok, get it now. Things break – often when you put big waves, strong winds and 1800 miles under your belt in a few weeks.