Failed Traveler Part

[Ward H]

Most of the sailors here on the forum are enthusiasts who do practice proper sail trim. Many sailors don't. They are happy making their boat go and that's it. They probably never touch the traveler and are quite content to not play with sail trim. Their boat, their choice.
Nothing wrong with that.
So, @JBS Mystic , were you always adjusting the traveler to get better sail trim or were you more of a set it and forget it type of sailor?
Either way, can you live with leaving the traveler centered until you buy your next boat? If you can, just rig a heavy shackle to attach the main sheet gear to the traveler beam, maybe a couple to spread the load and save that $1k for the next boat.

 

[JBS Mystic]

Thanks to everyone for the insightful advice and suggestions. Yesterday I hired a professional rigger who fixed a shackle to the central traveler car. I took the boat out today in tricky winds. The fix works perfectly -- the component seems strong enough to hoist the Queen Mary.
The only worry is what will fail next. To quote Donald Rumsfeld, "There are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know."
I suppose that's life on the high seas. I wish only there was more redundancy built into the boat's safeguards.

 

[dlochner]

Thanks to everyone for the insightful advice and suggestions. Yesterday I hired a professional rigger who fixed a shackle to the central traveler car. I took the boat out today in tricky winds. The fix works perfectly -- the component seems strong enough to hoist the Queen Mary.
The only worry is what will fail next. To quote Donald Rumsfeld, "There are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know."
I suppose that's life on the high seas. I wish only there was more redundancy built into the boat's safeguards.

Redundancy is what you bring to the table. Learning about your boat and boats in general will give you a good idea of what will go wrong. The more you break, the more you learn. The more you learn the less you will break because you will inspect your boat and know what to look for and fix it before it breaks.

Based on this experience you know now that all the shackles should be inspected for wear. The value of the disaster stories online and in the forums can guide you what to look for and how to get ahead of the problem.

My wife and I are getting ready to take a long extended cruise. While preparing the boat I noticed the cabin fan squealing from time to time, a sign of a failing bearing. We now have a spare fan and the supplies to replace it when it eventually fails. Realistically you can't carry a spare traveller, but you can learn to inspect it, look for wear and avoid a failure at an inopportune time.

And even with good preparation and inspection, stuff happens. On our last cruise we lost our transmission, had it replaced, and the it failed a second time. This is sailing, this is life.

 

[rgranger]

That fix looks legit

 

[jssailem]

That looks like a great fix.