Was I lucky or what? Forestay failure!

[Will Gilmore]

Congratulations for successfully navigating through your disaster. As you say, it could have been a lot worse than the loss is a little sail time and an $87 part.

I would guess that your 40 years of roller furling in heavy weather may have contributed, but of course, every time you tack, the angle of stress changes against your stem chain plate. It's really a wonder that more stem chain plates don't fatigue and fail after 40 years of sailing.

-Will

 

[dLj]

I would guess that your 40 years of roller furling in heavy weather may have contributed, but of course, every time you tack, the angle of stress changes against your stem chain plate. It's really a wonder that more stem chain plates don't fatigue and fail after 40 years of sailing.

-Will

I don't quite agree with that. All chain plates on sail boats should be designed and built to work well below their endurance limit. They should never fail through fatigue. I'd love to look at this failure and see why it broke.

dj

 

[Tally Ho]

Well, I pulled the mast today. First time I have ever done it…but it went pretty smoothly. A few friends to help and the marina guy with their big forklift got the job done. Tally Ho was in the water and tied up where the big forklift usually puts dry stack boats into the water.

I picked the new stem strap from the fabricator today…$86. Hard to believe.

Tomorrow, I will try to fit the new stem piece back on the boat and re-assemble the bow roller I needed to disassemble to get the stem strap back in place.

Then schedule haul put for next Tuesday, where I will store Tally Ho for the winter and will move the mast down to the ground on horses. I will have lots of work to do on the mast. In addition to the stays and shrouds. The sheaves are all broken, the furler will be replaced, new VHF cable and antennae, etc, etc.





Greg

 

[jssailem]

I will have lots of work to do on the mast.

It is a task, but you're good at this type of challenge.
When it is complete, you will sail with new and deserved confidence.