Rappahannock Rhapsody

[tomodda]

GL:

Than you for your analysis, and for your kind words about my skippering. I think that I've figured out why the jib was slack, but will need to draw a diagram to show. Likewise, I'm tired of pecking on this tablet, so will finish up my tale come Monday. Getting my underpowered vessel back to the dock in those conditions required some sailing technique, so may be of interest to future readers. At least for a laugh!

Tom

[Fly4rfun]

What!!!! we have to wait until Monday. totally not fair,

[GreenLake]

Tom, looking forward to the rest of your tale. I've noticed that you've gone back and added to some of your posts. Let us know when that's done, and everything's stable.

[tomodda]

I've noticed that you've gone back and added to some of your posts. Let us know when that's done, and everything's stable.

Sorry 'but that! Steven King (of all people) wrote that "To write is human, to edit is divine." And I quite agree, I always re-read the drivel that I write and then try and beat it into slightly less ridiculous shape. Anyway, what's done is now done, I won't re-edit anything already in this thread, will just keep writing.

Also sorry to make y'all wait till Monday. I'm on vacation! I'm the South Carolina Lowcountry, staring wistfully at all this water as I stroll around all the Southiness. Some nice towns, great seafood, got out to a decent beach today (Hunting Island State Park) and greatly enjoyed Port Royal and Beaufort. Earlier in the week, Hilton Head Island which sucks, just saying. And the tides around here, holy crap! 7-8 feet variance with the attending wicked currents. For little daysailers like us, that means timing your sailing trips carefully, otherwise you'll find yourself 20 miles down-current from your home, stuck on a mud bank, surrounded by alligators. Suffice to say I've seen ZERO boats actually sailing here in the Lowcountry. I DID see Dennis Conner's old Stars and Stripes (very impressive close up!), but they were motoring. Sigh...

Till Monday...

[GreenLake]

Totally get you on wanting to rebalance posts, add pix etc., while saving what you had. For my larger writeups, I sometimes draft and edit them elsewhere and just copy them into posts in chunks. And then I use the Preview and still edit a bit

[tomodda]

Recovery...Continued

Now, where was I? Sorry about the delay, more work got piled up while I was away, and journal writing got postponed! OK, so we broke our tabernacle, mast was hanging on by a thread, and we were bouncing around like a cork in a kiddie splash pool. Skipper (that's me!) was in a cold sweat, Crew (My son) was mildly perplexed, and our passenger (call her M) was oblivious and clogging up the airwaves with her questions and chatter. My dog, smart girl, was getting herself ready to abandon ship. On the positive side, the sails were down off the mast (in a heap) and we were still heading into the wind (kinda).

First things first, let everyone know what's going on and what I expect. And, as long as my arms have nothing better to do, get the sails in enough order that we're not tripping over them. I sheeted in and cleated the jib, so that it would lie more or less still on the foredeck, and at same time told my crew: "We're in an emergency, mast is about to fall over. M, slide yourself all the way forward, against the cuddy, and take (my dog) with you, put her under the cuddy. I'll answer questions later." She slid forward but didn't stop talking, so I had to be blunt "M, not now, stop talking". I grabbed a sail tie (they're always tied off near the CB handle) and started gathering up the main and tried to clear the brain fog. What now? My son interjected with "Dad, I got the engine down" Inside I said "Oh duh!", but outside I just said "Good job! Full throttle forward, turn to port." Of course we were now dropping off the wind, to starboard and away from land. A few more degrees and we'd be broadside to the waves, not good with a gimpy mast.

Full throttle and 45 degrees of starb'd helm did nothing to steer us back into the wind. Worse yet, the entire outboard was vibrating in a very worrying way. "Try turning the outboard itself to star...." Nothing. What the h*?? Had we damaged the prop as well? "Let me take the helm, take this tie and police up the mainsail. Stay aft" My son has been sailing with me long enough to know what I wanted and smoothly swapped places with me. I wanted to feel the tiller + motor myself, and I wanted our combined weight aft to counterbalance M and the dogs, hopefully get the bow up a bit so we could pivot around to the other tack, just like carving a turn on a surfboard. No dice – tiller felt fine, but motor still vibrating, not putting out enough power to turn us thru the eye of the wind. I wasn't going to argue and I really wanted to be on the other tack, so I gybed around the other way, to starboard. I hustled thru the beam–on to the waves position as fast as I could, and put us (under power) on a starboard tack broad reach. As soon as we were settled, I decreased the engine revs till it stopped vibrating, at about 2/3 throttle. I helped my son put another sail–tie on the main, and got it relatively secured, not flapping in our face "Good job, sit forward on the thwart and bring the board 1/2 way up, then take a look at the tabernacle."

"Oh wow!" and wide eyes staring at me. "Yeah.. keep an eye on it, please. Looks OK for now, but let me know if it shifts. I'm trying to get us to shelter as fast as I can" Whatever "as fast as" actually was under the circumstances... something wrong with the motor and a crazy quilt of gusts and whitecaps coming off the northern point that separated "Seafood Creek" from the wider Rappahannock (with 15 miles of fetch upwind of us! the Rapp runs straight North to South around there, and the wind was coming dead out of the North). OK, I got my thoughts together – with our board 1/2 up we drew about a foot, so we could go anywhere in the mouth of the creek, no problem. Forget about going in a straight line, think like a sailor, but in reverse.... steer AWAY from the puffs, steer towards the calmer patches of water. Must keep stress off the broken tabernacle. And I made the decision to open up the throttle all the way. Let it vibrate. We were far enough inside the mouth that if we lost the engine then we'd be driven onto the riprap onshore rather than out into the open river. I'd lose the boat, but we'd be OK jumping out by the shore. But the sooner we got out of the mouth of the creek, with all it's funnel effect on the waves, the better.

So, off we went... zig–zagging towards the dogleg in the creek, where there was smooth water and the trees would shelter us from the north wind. Of course, here is where our passenger decided to mutiny: "Where are you going!?!? The dock is over THERE!" etc...and I wont repeat the choice words I used to get M to pipe down and sit herself down. Much later, after we landed, we both apologized and M said that I did a good job skippering and admired how I related with my son. So there's that.. but in the moment.. sheesh! Anyway – my zigzag course took us mostly straight to leeward across the mouth of the creek, gobbling up all that sea room that I had so zealously fought for earlier. We just didn't have the horsepower to move meaningfully upwind and against the waves. It looked very scary to M, but was manageable to me at the helm. We worked our way into the deeper water of the channel, where the waves were somewhat smoother, and away from the 25kt winds whipping around the Northern Point. Still windy, but I was able to turn upwind to a "close haul," Northwest. We finally slid into the wind shadow behind the Northern Point, then had to fight thru one last patch of gusts where the wind cut over the "neck" of the Point. It was as I had expected – we had experienced the same gusts two days before. But by then I knew it would be just a short patch, and I was confident that the mast would hold.

Not much more to tell here... we got into the calmer waters beyond the dogleg, cut back on the throttle and made for the seafood dock. Tied up, had lunch. Well, first I had to sit down on the dock due to a case of the shakes... my usual delayed adrenaline rush! My son gave me a beer and sat with me for a while, he understood. Both the danger we had been in and how I felt about it – basically stupid + responsible. Yes, it could have been much worse. What saved us, besides luck, was that I still followed SOME of my old ingrained rules (apart from the lifejacket one). Sea room is money in the bank. Don't motor unless you absolutely have to (and then motor like h*ll!). Feel the boat, trust your hands and your ass more than your eyes. Always have a plan, but change it as the circumstances change. One hand for the ship, one for yourself....

I'll write up my postmortem tomorrow, if I have time. I now know what caused some of the weird symptoms that we experienced, and have a theory about why the tabernacle bolts sheared. However, I still dunno how we're not at the bottom of the Rapp right now, other than what I wrote up above. Not going to dwell on it too much, but I do want to think about what to do in future. In the meantime, before you ask – How did I get home? My wife came to meet us for lunch, with the car. The little marina around the bend from the seafood dock had a boat ramp... I puttered over there and pulled the boat out, secured all, and DROVE home.

[GreenLake]

Wow, just wow!

[Fly4rfun]

Tom,

Glad your ok and no injuries, and alive. thanks for the write up, educational also.

[tomodda]

Thank you. I should point out that when I sent my passenger forward, I had her keep her head down.

I was pretty sure that *IF* the mast went, it would snap out laterally, but you never know. If the mast fell aft, for instance if the forestay broke, then the heel would kick up and forward, away from her, and she'd have time to duck. Immediate danger to M would have been if the mast fell forward, then the heel would kick back... but that could only happen if both side stays broke at once... I think. Nevertheless, was I putting her at more risk sending her forward from where she was (about 3 feet aft of the cuddy)? All I know was that I wanted her weight at the pivot point of the boat and I wanted her out of the way. Immediately behind the cuddy is ideal for both. Hard to weigh relative risks in realtime. I was not INTENTIONALLY sending her to a more dangerous spot, I was balancing the boat. But in 20/20 hindsight, maybe it wasn't the best idea.

When I finally took the mast down onshore, I did it pretty much by brute force. I asked my son to push down on the heel (but stand to the side, cuz it was going to kick) while I let go on the belaying line from the hounds (mast) to the stemhead (bow). Then I tried to lower the mast onto my shoulder. The heel kicked a lot harder than we expected, but he managed to slow the fall as it just DROPPED onto my shoulder (ouch!). Then I slowed the fall as the masthead toppled over to the aft deck, and that was that... a "controlled fall" that would have been impossible underway. The mast is light (40ish pounds), but that leverage is killer!

[GreenLake]

The way you take a mast down like that is to keep it vertical, disconnect the stays and then set it off to the side onto a dock, or the ground (keeping it vertical). Then you have someone step on the place where the mast hits the ground and the other person walks back, angling the mast down. You might be able to have someone duplicate that on the foredeck, but I can think of a number of reasons why it would work better if the mast rested against firm (rough) ground.

Used to own a 15' boat with a desk stepped mast. It was a bit lighter, and the boat was lower on its trailer so we could lift it off and on standing next to the boat, but the key was to transfer it while vertical.

[tomodda]

Sigh, I wish I had had the presence of mind to have thought of taking the mast down to the ground vertically. Of course! That would have been the much safer way, and spared my shoulder. And it's not as if you hadn't written about how to handle an unstated mast before, here on this forum. Live and learn...

[GreenLake]

Tom, more perfect hindsight: it should have been possible to lash the bottom of the mast in position by just wrapping a line very tightly around the two halyards. I know, you didn't have far to go, but I think this would have been sufficient to ensure that the mast stayed up (especially with no sail loads on it). The standup blocks are secured well enough to resist the halyard pull in the direction of the fasteners. I believe that means that adding some shear loads shouldn't be of that much concern. I would have been more worried about the deck pumping enough to allow the mast to jump. Anyway, hindsight.

Now a question: you didn't tell us what caused the "clunk" and the "ping". Or did you?

Also, what about that scallop in the jib? Is your luff long enough that such a small change of orientation in the jib means you run out of adjustment range?

(I'm curious how you spent $200 on a tensioner, mine set me back less than $40).

Finally, your "egg-beater". I think it performed well, extremely well, given that it has all of .3HP. I once used mine to head into ~20kn gusts so I could take down the sails. That did work, but I may have had residual momentum as well. I know that the front of the DS has enough windage that I'm not surprised you couldn't push it past a certain point after you fell off the wind. I once did an experiment in more moderate conditions where I used jib and motor. Main was down and I set the motor to alleviate the lee helm from the jib. That combo let me sail upwind under jib.

[tomodda]

Post Mortem:

So, how did this happen? Here's my thoughts, let me know yours:

– Definitely too much weight in the boat for the conditions and what I wanted to do. Full sail (unreefed) in 20kt winds and a chop? Sure, Ok if you have two good sailors aboard and can "dance" over the waves. Flatten the main (depower) and off you go! My son and I sailed unreefed earlier in the week and two years ago in similar conditions. But 800lbs was too much, especially the way our weight was distributed – one person who was essentially dead weight, two dogs in the ends of the boat (120lbs between them), my son sitting too far back due to the broken tiller extension. Result – the boat slammed thru the waves instead of dancing over them. BANG! BANG! BANG!... all that force was counterbalanced by the rigging and sails, and all the force on the sails was counterbalanced by our excessive weight in the hull. What's the weak point in the middle? The tabernacle.

– So, what specifically happened to the tabernacle? In itself, it does not really move. And it didn't this time, it was the shoe on the upper part of the mast that came off the tabernacle. It's held in place with two screws going up thru the upper leaf of the tabernacle hinge into the bottom of the shoe. Normally everything is held in place by compression (as explained in an earlier post in this thread). What I think happened is that all our weight + the crashing thru the waves caused the hull to deform, to flex. Our boats, especially the older ones, are like a big red plastic Dixie Cup – squeeze it one way and it bulges in another. This flexing when we hit each wave monetarily loosened the stays...just enough to allow the entire upper mast to flex at the pivot point (see NOTE). This point was NOT the tabernacle itself but the shoe at the bottom of the mast meeting the tabernacle, all that force concentrated onto the two screws. Two OLD stainless screws, at least 30 years old (The PO had the boat since 1990) if not all the way from the 60's. Lots of crystallization micro–fractures and then one day BOOM! Or, in this case, CLANK! Because I think that's what the noise was at our first tack... one or both of the screws holding shoe to tabernacle finally giving out. I definitely felt "a disturbance in the Force" at that moment, something wasn't right with the boat, it wasn't just the strange noise. It caused me to heave to for a bit, but I should have trusted my instincts and headed back for shelter instead of plowing on.

NOTE: Yes, the hull always flexes a little bit. But that day was "The Perfect Storm" – too much weight, steep nasty chop, unreefed.

– What was that final PING? Honestly, I don't know. Was it the second screw failing under the shoe? Maybe, but I think it more likely that both were gone by then, just by how the boat was behaving since the CLANK. I think more likely was just the foot of the mast shifting some more, banging against the bronze foot block. All I know is that between the PING and the strange lurch that the mast took, I FINALLY woke up and saw the broken tabernacle!

– What caused the jib luff to be so loose? I think this is on me. Let me draw a verbal picture... I use a luff wire on my jib, so there's a shackle at the top, attached directly to the luff wire. The head of the jib itself is ALSO attached to this shackle (sewn on) and then the wire goes down a sleeve at the front of the jib and comes out at the foot to another shackle, which attaches to the stemhead. The foot of the sail is loose, it is not attached to the bottom shackle, but instead can ride up and down the luff wire a bit. I tie the foot of the jib to the stemhead with a separate loop of Dyneema , just as strong as stainless wire (see NOTE). This is all so I can easily adjust the luff tension with my halyard tensioner. When it's tight, the forestay actually goes slack, the mast "rides" on the luff wire (with a little bit of "shock absorption" from the minimal stretch in the rest of the halyard, NovaBraid XLE).

Jib halyard acting as a stay is why I adjust the length of the Dyneema loop a bit before each sail, based on the winds I'm expecting. That gives me a "range" for my jib halyard tensioner, has worked pretty well up to now. On the downside, I have a lot going on at the stemhead, a lot of attachments in very little space – forestay, jib luff wire, Dyneema loop, and two attachments for my reverse–purchase jib downhaul. All that week, I had the jib downhaul getting hung up in the Dyneema Loop.. it was too short, not enough space. So for that fateful Sunday, I deliberately tied the loop looser (I usually tighten it for high winds), thinking I could just take up the slack with my tensioner. Nope! Too much slack, the jib luff was not able to stretch out all the way on the luff wire and no amount of halyard tension would fix it. The extra cloth had to go somewhere, and that was into the ONE scallop. Usually, if the luff is too loose I get even scallops all up and down the luff, not just one. I agree with GL that the geometry of the shifted mast is not enough to have caused the scallop. I think I just didn't notice it till after the mast problems started. Anyway, that's my (long–winded) theory!

Overall, though, the jib scallop just pissed me off/worried me. It wasn't really robbing too much power from the jib. Mainsail problems were a different story.....

NOTE: I'm well aware that the knot on this Dyneema loop is a weak point. Dyneema tends to break at the knots. But in this case, it's a fail–safe, I WANT the knot to break if we ever have that much pressure on the forestay/jib luff.

– Why did the top of the mainsail get backwinded? I think this is directly caused by the mast shifting. It changed the geometry just enough to cause a reverse bend in the mast, which made the top 1/3 of the mast backwind (and me to freak out about trim). Moral of the story: If the top of your mainsail is persistently backwinded...and you don't have obvious sail twist, open leech, broken batten, or wind shear issues.. then you have some major mast issues! My brain got fixated on eliminating sail twist (haul on the vang!), when I should have quickly gone thru the above progression of possible causes...and landed on MAST.

– Why wasn't the boat driving (power) as much as it should have for all that wind? Normally, we FLY in 20 knot winds, we were moving along pretty well ub the smoother water behind the breakwater and punching thru the waves once we got out into the main river... until we broke the tabernacle. Simply put, the immediate consequences of the break were bad shapes for the sails. Strangling our speed and power.

– Why so much weather helm? Because the main wasn't keeping our bow up into the wind. Remember, I had already deliberately depowered the main so we could stand up without reefing... mains'l outhaul and downhaul (cunningham) were iron–taught, flattening the sail. Vang was loose(ish), twisting off the top. The geometry changes after the breakage depowered it even more (backwinded top), so the result was weather helm.

– What was wrong with my electric outboard?!? Weird vibration, low power. This one turned out to be simple – the outboard clamp had come loose! In all the fun, one of the big screws holding the eggbeater to the transom had loosened up. Result, vibration and lost thrust. After my lunch, I tightened everything up and had a smooth run over to the boatramp (I tested full throttle). Moral of the story: If your outboard is acting funny, check the clamps!

– Bonus question: Why is my jib halyard tensioner so expensive ($200ish)? Two Schaefer cheek blocks + a compact, low–friction fiddle block + a swivel foot block + a fairlead + camcleat + 8 feet of low–stretch rope + a horn cleat for the tail + good stainless screws and backers to hold it all together? It adds up!

[GreenLake]

Tom, that's a wonderfully detailed presentation that makes it easy to follow along. I love having a chance to dissect this a bit; all of us can learn something from thinking through scenarios like this. There's a lot here; I may split my response into several posts, if that's alright with you.

I'll start with the jib setup. Like you, I have a sail with a luff wire, actually in the latest incarnation the sailmaker switched to Dyneema, but I'll call it a wire. And there are the two lashings that can be used to set the tension of the luff relative to the luff wire. The sail came with the suggestion to do what you do, which is to adjust the bottom lashing to suit conditions. Now, I've sailed with it and was happy with the way the sail looked, so I never tried messing with it. It's tight enough that I can take out scallops, but I'm not 100% sure I'd notice if it's too tight.

I imagine the result would be that you'd get a bit more sag; the cloth should be more stretchy than the wire. I've not noticed too much sag, but I'm not sure I would be able to tell - scallops on the other hand are quite obvious. That you got only one seems to a one of those curious random things; I don't have a good suggestion.

I have a simple 2:1 system for my halyard tensioner. A floating block with a hook grabs a Prusik loop on the halyard. I'm using an (existing) eye on deck to attach the standing part and to redirect the free end going to a dedicated cleat on the cuddy opening. The line I use is 2mm. So, I think $40.00 is about all it took. It's been sufficient to get the scallops out, but you have to lean your body into it. I may go for a thicker line at some point; the cam cleat holds, but barely.

If we conclude that any trim issues with the jib may have been from before, you'd expect the jib's contribution to give you drive, but also to try to push your bow down.

[GreenLake]

Now, about the main. I had missed your report of the main backwinding near the top. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Now, what I think happened is that the mast heel (?) went forward by about an inch. In your photos I see that it normally does not rest against the hinge - there's a bit of a gap visible, and in one of them, where it's offset, it looks like it doesn't rest square against the hinge, but only with a flank, so the the tip of the oval cross section may have moved another fraction of an inch forward.

That would have increased your mast rake, and my guess would be to look there for your change in weather helm. We know that moving a mast foot by an inch has definite consequences for mast rake.

I'm less sure I understand you thoughts on bend in the mast. To bend a spar, you need to apply force in (at least) three places. Wedged as it was between hinge and standup block, the mast heel had moved, but it was held in its (new) place. The hounds are "fixed" by tension in the three stays. The "third" point would primarily be the boom pushing the mast forward (from vang/sheet tension). If the mast heel gives an inch, that reduces that tension initially, but you adjusted your vang. That should have restored that bending moment.

There's another component from the mast above the hounds. Fore-aft it would bend back with leech tension. Again, if the mast heel moves, the tip is allowed to go back, reducing tension until you reset vang and sheet.

I other words, I picture the mast/main sail system as simply pivoting a tiny bit around the fulcrum defined by the hounds, but I don't see how that alone would change any of the bending moments.

The same should apply to the sideways displacement of the mast heel. However, I'm less sure I can picture the effect that I'd expect from a mast that's not vertical in that plane. For a boat with a single sail, the effect should have been similar to heeling less/more, and perhaps some effect of the mast not being symmetrical with the hull. For a sloop rig, you might pick up an interaction from the jib and main not being the same plane. Also something that I'm not sure I know how to reason about. (It depends also on whether your mast heel kept switching sides ...)

To the degree your main was depowered by all of this, you should have had less weather helm, not more. That's the reason I think you might look into a change in the CE from the increased mast rake.