why didn't this happen???...

[Viking Sailor]

Note on BoatUS tow insurance: The tow is free if 25 miles or less. However, if over 25 miles you don't pay for the miles over 25 miles you pay for half of the total miles. Thus, for 35 miles you pay over $900.00 dollars.

[Don C L]

What a great learning experience. Now you have in the back of your head, "I will ___________________ if everything breaks." Most folks never think of filling in that blank.

[JPA Cate]

Okay, hillbillypirate,

Why did you not try the staysail?

Pictures of the mess at the masthead will be interesting to see. You may have to remove the masthead sheaves to get a good look at them. A clear pic will be instructive, not only for you, but for readers who've never seen a chewed up sheave before.....

To me, even if you decided to bail, the staysail could have got you in, with your self esteem more intact. If you left without it, then that's another lesson. You can consider 2nd hand sails, for the short term, it is not a large step towards a circumnavigation, but can give you some sailing accustomization to your boat and how she handles and what she'll do.

Ann

[TrentePieds]

Hillbilly:

You delineated some certain circumstances and then asked a very specific question. Before you knew, the discussion had morphed into one concerning questions that are much broader and not directly related to the question you asked. You will find that that is typical of discussions in this forum :-).

I commend you for having had the fortitude to “let it all hang out”, and I don't think I'd be speaking out of turn if I say that the reason for the morphing was that the immediate thought in the minds of “old hands”, as in my own, was: “What the hell was he doing out there, if he has to ask this particular question?”

You will find that people here do their very best to help – always – and that they will make assumptions about a new member without really knowing much about him. In your case the assumption was clearly made that you still have a lot to learn, as have we all. I thot it was particularly noteworthy that so many of the replies in one way or another addressed the problem of being a skipper.

Boat handling is the least of that, although it is obviously an essential part of it, as is a solid grasp of the elements of yacht design – such as that encompassed by your original question. It gave me a little soupçon of satisfaction that so many members used the “Socratic method”: Asking you questions that were really not questions at all, but gentle suggestions about what the responder thought you need to learn more about.

I hope you will follow up on the “reading list” these responses have presented you with. And please know that in this forum you will get good answers to anything concerned with sailing that could possibly care to ask about. And that by serendipity you will, when the discussion “goes off topic”, also learn about much else, all of it “stuff” that a good skipper carries around in his head :-)

And never forget that by asking, you may do an invaluable service for a lurker that doesn't have the courage to ask ;-)!

All the best

TP

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by boatman61

For me a warp is tying all your heavy line together with bowlines the loops figure off eight and running the last line through the hole in your largest fender and hanging the kedge anchor at the extreme end of the line.. a Danforth is perfect for this.. if you have a kedge.
In those conditions you describe this would have been more than adequate to either chuck off the stern to keep your stern quartered to the wind.. or over the bow to keep it more into the waves.. remember to lock and tie off your wheel.

Addendum... forgot to say.. for anything like this the buoy on the last section of warp needs to be at least 2.5 waves behind the one that's lifting your stern.. closer is pretty much useless.