Craaaack!

[George.]

So we are coming back from Buzios Sunday afternoon, making sail two hours before dark, figuring on picking up Dalia's mooring at Ilha Grande by Monday night. The last drunken sailors who "had" to see Dalia before we sailed are finally off the boat, the feijoada feast at the Buzios Yacth Club is still rolling, and all four of us have had way too much to eat and drink for the conditions expected outside.

We beat out into the 25+ knot breeze and three meter waves, shipping green water and joking about feeding the fish off Cabo Frio, where the wind and sea are expected to grow, as always. The boat is doing well, making 5-6 knots under main, staysail, and jib alone, and we are in good spirits.

We make a good offing and ease the sheets, and off we go, eight knots on a broad reach with a light helm and easy motion - no more spray strafing us, no more cockpit-filling seas expected to board. I go below for a shower, figuring on watching the sunset in dry clean clothes and oilies, ready for the night. Silvana and I will take the first watch, and at 2 AM hand her over to the mate and our good friend Tito, who came along for the cruise. By then the moon will be up and we should be well past Cabo Frio, running easy under the lee of the land.

I am just pulling on my pants, all proud of having managed the shower without losing my balance, wetting down the entire head, or getting seasick, the sea being now almost abeam and the shower being far forward enough to experience negative Gs. :D Suddenly, CRAAAACK! :eek:

I race out still shirtless to find everyone staring aloft, wide-eyed. Just as boat speed was steadying at just over nine knots in the freshening breeze, the main gaff has seen fit to split into two about a meter from the jaws. The aftermost five meters, now ending in a sharp jagged-edged point, are dangling about aloft, pointed straight at us, apparently trying to decide whether it would be more fun to impale crew or deck straight away or to shred the sail to pieces first.

Head up, strap in, furl the jib, up goes the foresail (ah, the joys of a two-masted rig!), and down we haul the mainsail and the remains of the gaff, miraculously without tearing the sail or fouling the lifts and lazyjacks. We three guys are busy lashing the gaff to the fife rail, and I am thinking whether it would be wiser to head back to Buzios in the gathering darkness, when I look back and see Sil at the helm, already back on course, easing the foresail sheet (ah, the joys of an oak-hearted woman!)

And now, the lucky part of the story. We have a charter this weekend - a just-married couple from London, whose honeymoon Dalia must not spoil, just in from a rough passage or not. They will sail with everything set and drawing, because Tito happens to be the best sea-carpenter we know (for those who have seen pictures of Dalia, he did all the fanciest details - a pity to have met him only once she was almost ready). He started work at sea, and is now off to buy glue (we are licking our wounds in Rio while we wait for the rain to ease before continuing on to Ilha Grande). We plan to sail tomorrow, with the trysail in place of the main and the mending gaff all clamped up and lashed on deck. Knowing Tito, he'll be sanding and varnishing before we raise the island!

[George Ray]

Glad the people and vessel are OK!
Any thoughts on why the gaff broke where it did? The material, the scantlings, the ???

[George.]

Our working hypothesis is that it was a combination of too many gung-ho sailors and landsmen, many unconvinced that getting everything bar-tight is not the best way to make a schooner go faster, eager to "help" hoist the main, and too many all-standing jibes in marginal conditions over the past week. It stands to reason, as the gaff split all the way to the jaws and broke near the throat, where the strain of the boom is greatest, and not near the peak where it is thinnest. It was blowing about 30 knots when it cracked, with the wind just abaft the beam and the sail hard against the lee shrouds, and apparently the event coincided with a pronounced roll.

[Hughman]

Did it break at one end of a span wire? Was it a built spar -i.e. laminated?

I was bosun on a vessel that lost the fore gaff halfway to Maderia, (at 2AM, of course!) First mate sailing by the lee, jibed the boat, threw me out of bed, he did. (this was a 156 foot steel two masted schooner.)

Main blew out an hour later. Interesting morning.

[rbgarr]

We cracked (didn't break) the main boom on a 125' schooner crossing the Atlantic and did this to hold it together for the crossing. That's a starfish that was about eight inches across that I got off the bottom.

http://i4.tinypic.com/82lfx4j.jpg

[George.]

Good job on that boom!

Dalia is back at her mooring. She did rather well under trysail, foresail, staysail and jib, limping in at six knots in a light southerly breeze. We are off again on Saturday, so it's mend, fix, clean and replenish stores. The guests didn't charter half a schooner, and they shall have a whole one, even if we have to take delivery of the gaff at sea.

[John B]

Thats the spirit.:cool:

[George.]

http://i4.tinypic.com/82lfx4j.jpg

I am getting really interested in this picture. In Portuguese this would be called "arreatar". It seems to me that not only is it useful for mending a cracked spar, but also for keeping it from breaking to begin with. Why not do it to the intact main gaff, for added strength and safety?


PS: What's the current free, idiot-proof, short- or no-registration, efficient-upload photo posting site? I'll post a picture of the gaff...

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

PS: What's the current free, idiot-proof, short- or no-registration, efficient-upload photo posting site? I'll post a picture of the gaff...

Photobucket.com

Good yarn by the way george. Glad you came out of it relatively unscathed. I would hate if anything happened to my day dream of sailing with you on Dalia to perish ;)

[George.]

Thanks, Joe.

No pictures of the actual event, of course. We were rather busy, and digital cameras don't seem to like spray flying around the deck. But here is Tito working on the gaff the next day, with the Sugarloaf already in sight in the haze:

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/escunadalia/DSC01772a.jpg



The gaff wasn't the only casualty of this cruise. Here is the jibtopsail all ahoo, in the process of being hauled down flying after the tack wire came unravelled and wouldn't roller-furl. Meanwhile, we are smiling reassuring some visitors in the cockpit that all that infernal booming, flapping and yelling up forward is a quite ordinary state of affairs aboard a schooner, nothing that should concern them unduly. :D

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/escunadalia/L1040702a.jpg

[Phillip Allen]

It WILL keep it from breaking...

I like my brick hammers with wooden handles and not the steel shanked things they sell these days. I have learned that when I buy a new one that I must get new braded mason's line and wrap it from the head to about half way down the handle. I do this by tying off on the truck hitch and walking to the end of the line and leaning back hard as I turn the hammer. finishing off by coating the whole wrap with epoxy...like a fishing rod...they won't brake at all once this is done.

[mmd]

The problem with binding a boom is that a.) it will hold moisture against the boom providing a good environment for rot; and b.) it hides the boom from surface inspection for cracks, checks, and rot.

IMHO, what rbgarr did was a superb example of a temporary repair to a damaged spar.

[rbgarr]

http://i4.tinypic.com/82lfx4j.jpg

I am getting really interested in this picture. In Portuguese this would be called "arreatar".
PS: What's the current free, idiot-proof, short- or no-registration, efficient-upload photo posting site? I'll post a picture of the gaff...

Coincidentally enough this was done at anchor in the Cape Verdes when it was still part of Portugal in 1972. (They gained their independence in 1975.)

I post all my pics through www.tinypic.com but it helps to have small photos (which I don't, so 'idiot proof' ? Not so much.) ;)

[John B]

When we dropped our rig I socketed the solid bottom into what remained of the top panel. I had a rip saw, a can of epoxy and the mast bands and gooseneck to clamp it up with.
got us home anyway.:rolleyes:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid224/p41db21a24bfe4e1cf49fd14690a80cd4/eac3034d.jpghttp://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid224/p86de5d861b6850042b2becae1a531c74/eac30395.jpg
use up my imagestation
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid224/pfbc8420e95c02b3f2a5221abbb2577dc/eac30394.jpg

what a laugh when you look back. LOL.

[Paul Pless]

Is it just me or haven't I seen bronze straps attached to the sides of booms and gaffs to strengthen them?

[Noah]

George, a more modern approach to strengthening the boom would be to use a carbon sleeve. They are available in lots of sizes and weights, and would add a bit more strength to the boom without the weight. The carbon weave is basically the same thing as the rope, but much lighter and weather resistant. I have no idea if you want to go the carbon and epoxy route though. Weight aloft is a huge factor, and going with a more modern material would be well worth it. Nobody should be adding bronze straps to the top of sailboat...

[John B]

Is it just me or haven't I seen bronze straps attached to the sides of booms and gaffs to strengthen them?

If thats what I think you mean, they're usually there as rubbing strips for shroud chafe. They aren't really going to stop this sort of thing happening when you get the gaff lying on or hitting the shrouds in a breeze.Big lever arm there. In lighter rigs that can cause some nasty twisting on the spreader and then the mast. The Buzzards bay 25 Jonquil wrung its mast this way a few years ago.( driver error, plus an argument for swinging spreaders)

[George.]

How about a fiberglass-epoxy sleeve with traditional rope over it? That should keep the spar from rotting under the rope, no? Carbon fiber is a bit out of our league as far as price goes, but fiberglass is "traditional" on Dalia, ever since I used it to strengthen the inside of the hull in way of the chainplates.

[Phillip Allen]

I think my hammer handle trick is worth thinking about. Epoxy over the wood then wrap then several coats applied to the wrap to saturate the material...water shouldn't get under all that.

It'll be a lot of work...

[Bill Perkins]

The boom repair is incredible .How exactly is that done ?

[rbgarr]

The ship's bosun either came up with it or found it in some reference. I recall the terms "fore 'n aft french whipping" being bandied about, but there was a lot of joking going on, so....

There are sketches of similar whippings in Ashley's Book of Knots, but I don't find anything exactly like it. He may have found it in some other manual aboard ship.

The funniest part of the whole process was keeping the different coils of cotton line from becoming tangled and out of order while we were doing it. Every once in a while we'd all stop, look at each other wondering if we'd got screwed up and burst out laughing. The turks' heads on the ends were just done for show. It was all wet down afterwards and seized up very tight. The crack in the boom was filled with white lead or tallow before the binding IIRC. It took a whole watch to do it.

Years later I was sailing through Woods Hole on Cape Cod and had to pull into the Eel Pond there to drop some friends off. When we tried to drop the mainsail the wire halyard jumped the sheave and jammed. Fortunately it was dead calm and I was able to tie up to the public dock without danger while the crew (my girlfriend's parents) went ashore. I went off to find someone strong who could haul me aloft on the jib halyard. A few doors from the dock was a bar. I stepped inside and there was this bosun! He tossed down his beer, walked down to the boat and winched me up while my girlfriend tailed. He was more interested in her than me and threatened to leave me up there while they went off together. She would have been tempted, too. He was a wild, devilish, Irish ladies man! :D I had to promise to buy him a six-pack (and give her my stereo) before they'd lower me down. I was going to get him one anyway, but we just went back to the bar with him, met his friends and bought a round. What a lucky coincidence. She forgave me the stereo and we 'traded other things' instead.

Charlie Rose and Francis Doohan, the schooner's captain and bosun. Good sailors and a hell of a lot of fun to boot!

http://i1.tinypic.com/815o3kp.jpg

[George.]

It was all wet down afterwards and seized up very tight.

Didn't I read somewhere that nylon rope does the opposite, i.e., becomes tighter as it dries?

[The Bigfella]

Glad things worked out well George. Don't forget my free day's sailing that I won on her!

[LeeG]

whew,,finally I get to see pictures of Georges boat,,wow. And thanks for the story.

[George.]

The gaff is fixed. We picked it up on Sunday, and had a great charter - lazy slow sails in light airs, sipping caipirinhas and watching the rainforest-covered islands go by. We seized and bound the new scarph joint, since the glue wasn't completely cured, and took it easy on the peak halyard, which is just what light winds call for. Tomorrow, we start to varnish - seven layers to go.