Sunday afternoon I got my boat out to the river, rigged up, and set out. About
300 yards out - TWANG! - down come the jib and both shrouds. I immediately
dropped the main, fearing dismasting with all that leverage on the now-unstayed
mast. Nobody around to give me a tow, so I paddled in, which was an enormous
chore with the boom, mainsail, jib, and shrouds in the cockpit with me and
trying to make headway against a good (would've been perfect!) breeze. I
usually inspect the fittings when I am rigging up, didn't look real closely at
the tang this time but I think I would have noticed anything major like missing
rivets. Seemed solid enough when I was hooking up the upper roller of the jib.
Seems like I've had an inordinate number of equipment failures and/or mishaps this summer: a broken rudder blade, centerboard on its last legs, heat exhaustion, unable to climb back in after capsize drill, and now the mast tang. I guess that's par for the course for an old, poorly maintained (by previous owners, I hasten to add) boat and an even older and more poorly maintained (by the owner, in this case, admittedly) skipper.
300 yards out - TWANG! - down come the jib and both shrouds. I immediately
dropped the main, fearing dismasting with all that leverage on the now-unstayed
mast. Nobody around to give me a tow, so I paddled in, which was an enormous
chore with the boom, mainsail, jib, and shrouds in the cockpit with me and
trying to make headway against a good (would've been perfect!) breeze. I
usually inspect the fittings when I am rigging up, didn't look real closely at
the tang this time but I think I would have noticed anything major like missing
rivets. Seemed solid enough when I was hooking up the upper roller of the jib.
Seems like I've had an inordinate number of equipment failures and/or mishaps this summer: a broken rudder blade, centerboard on its last legs, heat exhaustion, unable to climb back in after capsize drill, and now the mast tang. I guess that's par for the course for an old, poorly maintained (by previous owners, I hasten to add) boat and an even older and more poorly maintained (by the owner, in this case, admittedly) skipper.
The keeper for the pin worked its way out and the pin came out. I was just turning down wind so I dropped the main and jib and motored to the nearest dock at the lake to repaired it. Lucky for me the PO gave me a big box of parts..