440: Bow spirit was pulled down last night by bridle, need advice

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by Tin Tin

The prodder is on a swivel that lets it fold down when pressure is put on the stays. This is the reason they use bungy / shock cord to hold the prodder up, not a fixed line. Another reason not to leave your gennaker attached when anchoring in fast flowing channels with wind against tide.

good point ! Will remember that for these river anchorages at spring tides. I found that when tied with bungy only in bad weather bow sprit is swinging quite a lot especially if gets immersed in water and prone to damage.

[Fantazia55]

My supporting bungee parted in rough seas near Cape Hatteras, leaving the prodder flailing between the huls. Made me wonder what they were thinking. Should your prodder be connected to the seagull stryker with a strong line and you drop a sail in the water it would likely damage your forbeam from the torque loads generated by a sail in the water. This would likely lead to a castrophic forbeam failure in some cases. There is usually a reason for most of these semmingly silly ideas. We are currently in St Augustine and appreciate the problem with currents here.

[Nahbrown]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

attach spi halyard to bow sprit. In violent currents vs wind conditions loosen halyard a bit to lower max forces on bridle and bow sprit wires.

We have no issues in such conditions except bridle gets chafed a bit and is now after 6 years due for replacement.

Funny enough I had disconnected the spin halyard to lift a few things and move them around the boat. It was tied to the eagle spreader at the time...

Originally Posted by Fantazia55

My supporting bungee parted in rough seas near Cape Hatteras, leaving the prodder flailing between the huls. Made me wonder what they were thinking. Should your prodder be connected to the seagull stryker with a strong line and you drop a sail in the water it would likely damage your forbeam from the torque loads generated by a sail in the water. This would likely lead to a castrophic forbeam failure in some cases. There is usually a reason for most of these semmingly silly ideas. We are currently in St Augustine and appreciate the problem with currents here.

These St Augustine tidal currents are wicked for sure. We decided to anchor over by Vilano Beach. The currents are still strong but at least we are alone.

[aclmck]

Normally turned. Rudders work ,,bucket on one side of the transom with a short rope works ,offset bridal works, fore and aft anchors can work but harder to leave on a full running tide,easy on dead high or low tide. Sometimes I have used a slightly open sail to help, or don’t use a bridal at all in fast running tides.(this is where a “sally” is used to keep the rode hanging straight down and prevent the rode from scraping your hull dropped deep enough for a few feet clearance under the boat)

Try the easiest for you until you find what works on your boat,some boats react differently between fully loaded and nothing on board , but experiment and you should solve the issue of running over your tackle And not causing an issue

[LeeV]

We had our 450 F on a mooring in the Palm Beach area and it was so strong it did the same, only when it pulled down over the stays, it ripped the small cleat out of the dolphin striker, and had such downward force that the sprit took a huge crunch halfway up where it hit the blade of the anchor, hung there and just kept pulling. Nobody was on the boat, so it was like that for days.


Now I can't figure out how to remove it from the pivot point. There seems to be a small pin with a split ring but with the ring removed the pin doesn't come out or push through.


Ideas?

[Nahbrown]

I hate tidal rivers.


Update. Turing the rudders works.... sometimes. I have just decided to take the bow sprit down at anchorage or mooring balls. It takes 10 minutes to take down and secure both sides and about the same to put back up.