The Fallen Mast Yacht Club

[GeoPowers]

Does a cracked mast count? If so sign me up! Hauling out in a few weeks to fix...

Frank

[casual]

I,am in,13 ft Wood Pussy don't Laugh built in Mass,in the 40's Sailing out the St Lucie Inlet Decades ago Big Wake from a Sportfishing boat and the roll of the ocean ,Down she came snapped the Mast about 3 ft up from the deck,no motor Got Luck and another power boat towed me home.Had a new mast built,Great sailing boat.

[Ex-Calif]

My boat lost its mast before I bought it. Nice new Selden rig about 5y/o when I bought it.

Out one day with 5 on the rail, close hauled in 20kts. BOOM! Blew the windward lower shroud. Mast looked like a banana to me. Saved the mast through good luck. Stabilized it with the spin topping lift and motored home. All new chainplates...

I hope there isn't a third chance...

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by susanna reiter

Okay...here is another one...imagine the same elderly O'day Day Sailor..this time..Ventura Harbor....launched at the ramp..and someone who will not be named here (also an elderly day sailor)...goes sailing happily out into the harbor and within minutes she ...the O'day...is starting to list, then really list, then aglub...yah ...he forgot to put the plug back in the transom drain scupper before he launched her...sunk right there in the harbor....what a mess...we finally got her out, with the help of the Harbor Patrol....geez...talk about not wanting to talk about something....but I digress...this would have to be for "I Sunk The Boat" Yacht Club membership....anyone want to join that one...?????

I once launched my daysailor with the drain plugs out, but at least I had the sense to put them in, quickly, when the water began to rise!

[rolandcavanagh]

Hobie 16 about 11 years ago with my (recent College grad!) Son, didn't inspect the shrouds, hauling butt, *pop* wham, she's down, minor cuts from the strands, and plenty thankful it didn't take one of us out. Towed back quite some way by a passing bow rider. Inspecting 10 year old replacement shrouds next week when she goes on the beach in Jamestown, RI.

[NSboatman]

1st time - was 13, sailing my home built plywood 'weekender' friendship sloop (yes, the one from Popular Mechanix) in Halifax Harbor. Strangely enough, clothesline (plastic wrapped wire of some kind) doesn't really have much strength. Dropped the stick (wooden, with a heavy bronze tabernacle) until it stuck out sideways 90 degrees from the boat. I could not bend the bronze back - so i was stuck getting a tow in with this pole sticking out of the side of me...

2nd experience- snapped the main gaff in half on a 94' classic ketch in mid-Biscay, in about 35 knots of wind, short steep Biscay seas. My fault again - I had just over tightened the gaff vang for some stupid reason. It promptly took out the lee spreader and poked 4 massive holes in the mainsail. We had to ship the topmast immediately because without the spreader it was going to whip itself into pieces. Lowering a 35' wooden spar from the top of a 60' spar in steep chop offshore is not for the feint of heart. Used up a few lucky breaks that day.

3rd time - last october - pulled apart two (count em - 2!! at the same time!!) bronze eye-pad fittings on the hull of my 38' wooden, double-ended ketch. they were for the boomkin support stays. Nasty gusty winds (ave 17 kn, but wildly unpredictable gusts to 38) and short chop again lead to some pounding and surge loads that they objected to. This time I was reefed down enough and quick enough off the mark to not lose the rig. but it made me jump!

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Geoduck

I thought I would form a new club - new to me anyway -
If you want to join - you must have at least busted some rigging while out sailing hard on the wind.
Those who have lived through total dismasting get a gold star!
Feel free to sign up - if you qualify!!

]]


Oh dear - the initiation fee is more than I EVER want to pay!!!!

[IslandHopper]

Surely this must rate above Gold, maybe a life membership.....

Yacht hit by tanker off Cowes, Isle of Wight - YouTube

[Jim Cate]

Well, I'm not sure that I really desire membership in this club, but in 1996, about 75 miles SE of Cape Moreton (Qld) we lost mast, boom, rigging, three sails, 5 winches, a furler, radar, instruments, lights and a lot of ego. This was in Insatiable I, an old IOR one-tonner from Palmer Johnson.

We were hove to at the time, resting after 5 days of truly nasty wind and sea conditions starting a bit north of Lord Howe Is during a passage from Sydney towards New Caledonia. Apparent cause was loss of split pin in the lower clevis pin in the windward lower shroud, clevis pin worked it's way out, shroud disconnected from chain plate, mast broke about 200 mm above the deck. This scenario deduced from no broken bits found, and a clevis pin, sans split pin, rolling about on the deck by the chain plate, all with no sign of the lower shroud.

Dark as the inside of a cow, still 3-4 M seas and 30 kts, diminishing... we were knackered and just cut it all away before it punched a hole in the hull. This is an expensive hobby... not recommended!

Cheers,

Jim

[SmartMove]

The end result was the same, but the process was different. We had our Catalina 27 hauled out at the Great Salt Lake Marina for new bottom paint and decided to replace the standing rigging at the same time. The paint was done and the boat back in her slip but it was taking a really long time to get the rigging done.

We had been told that the mast would be up by the weekend. So, on that particularly blustery Saturday, we drove out to the marina. We stopped for lunch on the way as a particularly nasty storm cell moved through. When we got to the marina it became apparent that a local weather phenomenon called the Tooele Twisties had just blown through the marina with guts up to 60 knots. As we were walking to our dock we saw a sailboat laying on it side on top of a mast on a trailer, and the mast was totally mangled. I said to my husband that it would suck to be that person.

When we got to our dock the rigger met us with the sad news about out mast -- it was under a sailboat that had been blown off it's stands during the microburst. It sucked to be us. It took most of the summer to get a new mast and get it prepped and up.

[Sabbatical II]

Several years ago I did fall from a 75' high mast. Does that qualify? I was however only as far up as the boom while trying to connect the halyard.

[Geoduck]

Sorry-Unless you fell from the top and lived, you don't qualify.

[Geoduck]

Originally Posted by GeoPowers

Does a cracked mast count? If so sign me up! Hauling out in a few weeks to fix...

Frank

Yeah - that's scary enough - you're in!

[zeehag]

guy i sailed with in gulf of mexico had forward stay break . losinghis jib, that was before i met him--when we were in dry tortugas, a lower shroud snapped--sounded almost like gunfire--we were lucky the turnbuckle was holding just enough threaded material to be able to re-screw the shroud to the chainplate and go onward.....was a kind of tense moment....didnt lose mast.