You Get What You Ask For

All is well on board in Deltaville - I removed the autopilot opened it up and dried it with a heat gun, seems to be working. All the broken mast and deck fittings have been cleaned up, rigging checked to the top of the mast. I think we are close on the water maker as well, received all the spare parts we needed and reassembled, tested briefly for 5 minutes as the water is very silty in the Chesapeake. I have changed the membranes, pre-filter and carbon filter as well - so fingers crossed once we hit clean waters we will be able to test it successfully.  How did we get here you ask;

We moved from Solomons to Deltaville this past Sunday. NOAA was calling for gusty winds up to 25knots and 3-4 foot seas. Grib files showed a bit less. NOAA was right. We wanted to go anyway, test ourselves if you will. Mistakes were made, at the strategic and operating level. Initially we set out with a reefed main and solid navigation plan - and it was working with winds 15 knots gusting 20. In fact going so well that we decided that our tried and true strategy of running downwind wing and wing - poling the Genoa out to windward was going to be the ticket. The poles (there are two one for each side) are massive,  6" diameter 30' long aluminum, after some tweaking Rae and I were able to get the port pole lowered and ready. We brought out the Genoa, adjusted, got us sailing at about 150 off the wind, set the preventer on the main boom... and well started having a good time. We relaxed, the wind and seas started to build, we were sailing a bit further south than would allow us to round the very shallow Smith point, but on the sled ride like that you kind of enjoy going with it. I should note that the boat is a pleasure to work on deck, great spacing for moving, handholds and generally comfortable motion. A few minutes later, I was disconnecting our broken port spinnaker pole letting the debris overboard - we got very lucky to have just damaged the pole and fittings. Somewhere is a short 5 minutes, we headed a little east of south to clear Smith point, wave action picked up considerably and were now breaking, and wind settled in at a gusty 25 knots - and we came into the wind, Genoa backwinded to leeward and snapped the pole off. 

We reviewed what happened several times, we did have a helm exchange in the middle of this 5 mins, quite possible that the autopilot got left in standby allowing the boat to round up, quite possible that wave and wind caught us and over powered the autopilot. Eventually though, we all laughed at the picture of something breaking, me walking up on deck and tossing it overboard - a warning to all. 

We got everything back under control, sailed a broad reach, jibing several times down to Deltaville, anchoring in Fishing Bay, which is highly recommended. 

For the last hour or so it bucketed down rain, so much so it seemed to have soaked our helm autopilot control and put it out of commission. We also really struggled to reef the main, so we need to get that sorted. I was spoiled on previous boats, where given their smaller size, I went to the mast reefed the main with a bit of brute force and off we went. 

It is safe to say that we have not sailed Tenacious enough, her size and the forces involved are way out of league. Pic is of the carnage to the pole to mast fitting. 


Comments

  1. Chris and Mark LignoulDecember 24, 2022 at 6:17 AM

    Wow! Thankfully no one was hurt! We hardly ever used the spinnaker pole on Silhouette for that very reason. It was heavy (had to be on a 50' boat) and dangerous to drop in case of a quick change in wind/seas/weather. Only used our spinnaker once - are you guys planning on going around the world?

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