The strangest thing happened -- the nautical equivalent of crop circles. I'm hoping someone can explain it. Here are the clues:
One evening a couple of weeks ago, my son was getting ready to take out Dharma Bum, our 1979 O'Day 25, but he couldn't get the OMC Saildrive motor to turn over. It had been stormy of late in Chicago, so neither of us had sailed the Bum for a couple of weeks. She was nicely tucked away, the mainsail lashed to the boom and covered as always, the halyards secured and the genny furled -- completely undisturbed since I last sailed her. (I'd be able to tell if anyone took off the sail cover because I have a peculiar way of securing the boom with the mainsheet knotted over the cover.) I told my son to lock her up and I'll look at the engine in the morning.
It turned out that her starter motor was fried -- not all that unexpected from a 32 year old, 2 cycle engine. After a successful internet hunt, I replaced the starter and, while at it, swapped out the old, cracked ignition switch (a project I had intended for a while) and Perko battery switch, which started sticking when the starter went bad. When I removed the old battery switch, I found that the plastic around the terminal for the battery switch's #1 position was melted, so it wouldn't complete a circuit with our #1 starting battery (battery #2 is the deep cycle house battery, but you can start the engine on #2, as well). I figured we had pumped so much amperage into the burnt-out starter trying to get it to work that the switch's terminal, like the broken starter, got very hot. I didn't know #1 wasn't connecting because I usually start the engine with the battery switched to "All." All the time while she was sitting at her star-dock waiting for her engine to be repaired, the Bum's mainsail remained folded on the boom and buttoned into its sail cover.
Yesterday, my son and I went sailing. The engine started right up and all was well ... until I took the cover off to raise the mainsail. The sail was covered with large dark brown splotches, concentrated mostly along the leech (for maybe a foot or two in) and wherever the folded sail came into contact with the boom. The splotches, some of them a couple of feet square, looked like burns, but the cloth didn't feel brittle or compromised, and we sailed under the main in light winds with no problem. The blotches are not mildew or mold and the sail, while not new, was nicely refurbished at Sailcare the winter before last. There was no sign of staining on or inside the sail cover, and the genny was fine. There appeared to be some areas of white powder deposits on the boom, which looked like aluminum oxide, but there wasn't much. I haven't yet tried scrubbing the sail, but I suspect it won't easily wash off (and I'll be sailing around with what looks like used, tie-dyed toilet paper for a mainsail until I send it to Sailcare in the fall).
Here's one other oddity. The masthead wind indicator kept sticking, and from the deck it looked slightly bent. Otherwise, everything was normal. All the electrical systems worked, no blown fuses, the standing rigging looked fine, there were no signs of burns or melted insulation, and once we yanked the old starter, no funky smells. So how did my mainsail get trashed?
I have three unsatisfying theories, two of which are electricity-related. The first is that the same massive amperage draw that fried the battery switch caused by trying to start the toasted starter motor somehow pushed current into the boom which warmed up and melted the finish on the sail. The second, maybe more plausible, is that the boat was struck by lightning. That might explain the stuck masthead indicator. And we had a lot of electrical storms in June. The third is extraterrestrials.
But I always thought that a lightning strike would fry the entire electrical system or at least cause more widespread damage. I can't tell you whether the starter motor fried out before or after the sail was stained, or whether the two are even related. And why would the sail on the boom be affected but the halyards running along the mast and the genny furled around the aluminum jib furler seem untouched? And are the stains even burns? The sail cloth seems okay, just badly discolored.
I sure hope one of you with a background in electronics, chemistry or natural science has an answer. Otherwise, I'm going to sleep on the boat the rest of the summer waiting for the UFO to reappear.
