I had an interesting adventure, or almost, last weekend. After setting up my H15 (3years old now) and driving it to the launching ramp, I clipped the kerb rounding a corner and 2 seconds later I heard a loud crash. Looking out my rearview window I saw that the mast had fallen.
The forestay had failed at the top of the jib where it attached to the roller furling swivel. The wire goes around an eye and is crimped. That crimping is then covered with shrink wrap. The wire broke under that shrink wrap.
I tend to check my equipment regularly, especially the standing rigging as catastrophic failure is not something I wish to encounter. So thinking about what happened here, hiding the crimp under shrink wrap is counter productive as you can not inspect it.
As it turned out all this was very easy to get fixed, a new heavier gauge forestay and a resew of the channel that the forestay ran in (as when the wire snapped, it ripped through the stitching in various places along the channel).
And better still all this happened on dry land while no one was in the boat. I can imagine the grief that would have befallen if this had happened on the water in the 21 knot gusts we had today.
And so to the point of my post, would some H146/H15 owner (who has roller furling) please send me a photo of what connection of wire and sail looks like at the top swivel and at the roller furling drum.
Cheers
The forestay had failed at the top of the jib where it attached to the roller furling swivel. The wire goes around an eye and is crimped. That crimping is then covered with shrink wrap. The wire broke under that shrink wrap.
I tend to check my equipment regularly, especially the standing rigging as catastrophic failure is not something I wish to encounter. So thinking about what happened here, hiding the crimp under shrink wrap is counter productive as you can not inspect it.
As it turned out all this was very easy to get fixed, a new heavier gauge forestay and a resew of the channel that the forestay ran in (as when the wire snapped, it ripped through the stitching in various places along the channel).
And better still all this happened on dry land while no one was in the boat. I can imagine the grief that would have befallen if this had happened on the water in the 21 knot gusts we had today.
And so to the point of my post, would some H146/H15 owner (who has roller furling) please send me a photo of what connection of wire and sail looks like at the top swivel and at the roller furling drum.
Cheers
