"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in message
anews.com...
"Flying Pig" wrote in message
...

Just what, exactly, broke your boom, by the way? Certainly, a prudent
sailor would not have put themselves in the situation where force was the
cause, and any competant yachtsman would have noticed any incipient
failure due to degradation of hardware and remedied it before failure.

I was anchored in St. Augustine with a fellow single-hander who sails a
32-foot Allied SeaWind ketch. The wind was blowing half a gale out of the
northeast and we decided it would be a good day to sail to Miami just
inside the Stream current.

I was beating my way out the relatively narrow inlet, was about halfway
out the channel under working sail in very steep seas breaking on the bar
and the tack prior to the breakage the boom swung over to the other side
just as the bow slammed into a very steep sea almost stopping the boat
dead in her tracks. When the boom fetched up on the close-hauled mainsheet
which is attached to a traveler atop the coach roof the boom broke in two
goosewinging the mainsail where the aft boom bale (mid-boom sheeting) was
attached to it by four screws - two on either side. The holes for the
screws apparently weakened the boom enough in that area that it allowed it
to break there.

So, you're saying you don't do a regular review of your equipment to notice
weak spots, and that failure led to an equipment failure which caused you to
have to motor ignominiously back to the dock (or anchorage, or mooring,
whichever it was at the time) in "interesting" conditions...

Oh, I forgot. You sailed back. Well, of course, in such winds, the jib or
genny was plenty to drive you home, and easier to douse when you're ready to
stop.

Hm...

I'll still take your tour of the Keys...

L8R

Skip, less than a week away from being back home


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
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"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely nothing-half so
much worth doing as simply messing, messing-about-in-boats; messing about in
boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's
the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get
anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and
you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."



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