How would you get back ?

[capngeo]

You are sailing. It is night; midnight watch, and you suffer a catastrophic failure to your rigging... the whole thing is in the drink and beating on your hull with each wave. You are 150nm from the nearest land and IT is desolate and uninhabited. The nearest inhabited land is 250nm away. Your ditchbag went over with the rig, taking your EPIRB, SPOT and satphone with it. In an effort to keep hull integrity, you cut the remaining shrouds and the entire rigging goes to the bottom.

You have 75 miles worth of fuel, only VHF handhelds for communication, and no working positional instruments. You are well stocked with food, water and medical supplies...... your dinghy is intact but only has a 10 mile range...

How would YOU get back?

[callmecrazy]

it would have been best to not cut the rig away unless it was causing immediate danger... instead, lash it to the boat until daylight, when you can work out a way to salvage as much as possible. Take said salvage, and rig up whatever kind of stick you can hang a sail on. Sail home...

If we have to stick to your scenario, a lot would depend on your position, the currents, and weather situation... Are you in the tradewinds? Gulfstream? could you drift for the next 30 days and hit land?? If the boat is staying afloat, you can basically drift forever, as long as you know how to catch fish

[David_Old_Jersey]

I would rig my spare mast. using my spare rigging

Woz it a rogue wave?

[capngeo]

Callme..... off the east coast of FL stuck in the Gulf Stream.... next stop: IRELAND! The rig had to be cut away, it was holing the boat!


DOJ: Nope.... Chainplate corrosion failure is the best guess

[doug86]

Lets see..... sail inventory: a storm jib, a light reacher and a trysail are all left in the locker. I've still got tools: wire, rope, line, tape. Ah, the dinghy has oars, and I have that long wood boat hook lashed to the deck. Can you say "jury rig"?

I rig a small upright spar with the oars and boat hook, and hoist a small sail to its top. When the winds are calm, I motorsail at about 4kts; when the wind blows at all, I kill the engine and settle for even 2kts towards that inhabited island.

Of course, I have my wristwatch, and a compass and a spare sextant and charts. Flares are out and ready if I see another boat...

[Pinayreefer]

Assuming I had a spinnaker or whisker pole and storm jib, I'd rig that up and try to sail toward the inhabited land.
But what do I know, this is my first post!

[David M]

If you have no communications then your only choice is to drift until you are within 74 miles of land, unless you get lucky and someone sees you. This also assumes you have no way of setting up a jerry rig in order to set a little bit of sail. If you are also within 74 miles of a shipping lane then you could head there and set off a flare when you see a ship.

Or, beam me up Scotty, this stinks.

[svcambria]

This sounds like a Zen koan set just off the US coast - so put on your ruby slippers (or your back-up ruby slippers if necessary), close your eyes, say "There's no place like home" three times - and you're out!

Michael

[MarkJ]

Its only 150 miles to land or 250 miles to land and people.

I'd see what I could jury rig and sail/drift downwind. If the downwind is 6,000NMs like the Pacific its a more inteststing problem.

My boat has enough food and water for maybe 4 months. And fishing gear but I can't fish for nuts

First plan would be not worry.
Second plan would be to make a plan

And if its the 6,000nms then I would really be looking at making a jury rig as good as possible. My spinnaker pole is attached to the mast so if that went overboard too... gulp.... I could make a 7 foot mast with my compression post. maybe the floorboards too.

My undies catch plenty of wind.

Then sit back and relax whilst making the Survival documentry on the video camera.

[Unicorn Dreams]

1st would be wondering why my fuel tank was so low.

2nd why did I cut the rig away so quickly, could have left it dangling under the boat while I figured it out

3rd All else fails, drop the mizzen, move it forward and have a nice trip...

[offline]

Hmm..

Well.. I've got a largish traction kite stored below I could always loft that.

and I bet you I could jury rig something that was at least 10' tall from the materials onboard.

[capngeo]

The only sail is the asymmetrical spinny.... The dinghy is an inflatable with those cheap aluminum oars. The fuel tank was full... just not very big (C'mon it IS a sailboat right?) Another thought to consider is the remaining fuel might make a big difference by running the genny and watermaker!

Nice thinking on the compression post Mark... Didn't consider that one myself... BUT remember the downwind / down current island is Ireland! Close enough to 6000nm! The wind is forecast to return to East in a few days, but for now it is SSW adding to the Gulf Stream's speed.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by capngeo

BUT remember the downwind / down current island is Ireland! Close enough to 6000nm! .

OH, I didn't know it was in the north atlantic!

Thats easy!
the busiest shipping route this side of Singapore.

Just sit on deck and wait till a ship goes past and wave some fake boobies

No use trying to go uphill on a jury rig.

[sailingaway221]

Cake... Blow up my kitesurfing 14m kite.. hook it to the bow and sail upwind to the appropriate port.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by capngeo

Callme..... off the east coast of FL stuck in the Gulf Stream.... next stop: IRELAND!

Living next the Gulf Stream in S FLA, and from statistical data, the dominant wind is from the East to SE. On occassion it will clock to the NE or the west side of the compass for brief periods of time when fronts come through. Based on dominant winds, all you need to do is get out of the heart of the Gulf Stream using a jury rig a down wind sailing rig. Once out of the heart of the Gulf Stream there is a lazy 1 kt drift to the north. If you are up to it- man up and paddle the dink! Or.....

Couldn't an asym spinaker be lashed to what was left of the leeward life lines? The head would need to be elevated using whatever could be rigged. The life lines could be used as shourds/stays to support the temporary mast. Once out of the Gulf Stream, you could make landfall in Savannah (good seafood) or perhaps South Carolina.

Since you are off the east coast of FLA, there are numerous north-south jet ways flying over. So you could use a signal mirror to get the jet attention. If you lost that go down to the head, and tear that one off the wall.

Okay guys would that work?????

Bill