sherwindu wrote:

OK, I just re-read the message and saw that you did reef the sails. I'm
puzzled why
the boat was heeling over 60 degrees, as you described it.

Because there was one HECK of a lot of wind! During the peak of the
worst squall, I was too busy to really gauge the wind, but it could
easily have been 50+. We measured 40+ at the tail end of the first
squall on my hand held Kestrel wind gage.



.... Maybe you didn't
have
enough of a reef set?

You're right, we didn't. But the sail only had a single reef.

... You might have tried heaving to, until the squal passed.


We thought of that, but there are couple of issues to consider. We
didn't have any foresail set, and no practical way to set any in the
time allowed under the conditions prevailing (the boat's roller furler
did not work very well). We did not have any familiarity with how the
boat behaves when heaved-to, generally not a fin-keeler's strong suite.
And the mainsail was already in the process of shredding, which is why I
tried to keep from luffing up too much anyway. IMHO it would have flown
apart flogging if we had brought the boat through a tack.

Of course, it came apart anyway, but at least it waited until almost the
end of the squall.

It's a very different ball game, delivering somebody else's newly bought
boat. If had been my own boat, things would have been very very
different from the start!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King