Great day for a sail, today.....20-25kts, flatwater! (blasting), had a few good runs when SNAP......CRACKLE.......(bugger)......BANG!!!

Mast snapped just below boom, 3kms off-shore, with an offshore wind! No panic, but what do I do? Luckily I had a couple of friends sailing with me that came to the rescue (Bert & Chef).

The advice from Bert (years experience), pack it up, slide mast pieces through footstraps, roll-up sail and tie with outhaul rope, lay boom and sail on board (held by mast), then Chef came along, we tied my uphaul to his rear footstrap, lay on board/gear, and he towed me in, 30-40mins safe on beach (otherwise ). Biggest injury to me.....a carbon fibre splinter, (might see if I can sell it, going by carbon prices!), injury to Chef......probably won't be able to move tomorrow after slogging 3kms back in with me in tow!

Thanks again guys!

Just thought I'd share this if anyone gets caught out offshore....I'll be thinking very hard about sailing by myself in an offshore in the future!

P.S. (does anyone have a spare bottom-half for a NP X3 460 mast???)

Pretty much always the bottom that goes. Cut off the bottom 2ft ish on a 45deg angle and use it for a beach rod holder

Mark _australia said...

Pretty much always the bottom that goes. Cut off the bottom 2ft ish on a 45deg angle and use it for a beach rod holder

Good idea! (Not as cheap as 2" PVC, but flashy!)

mineral1 said...

Mark, RDM tougher?

OOOH yeah. Used to do a mast per season.... now 3yrs on same mast

Gonewindsurfing247 said...

Can I just ask why you didn't ditch the mast, ie why bother towing back a broken mast?

You need something to fend of the sharks

Hack,
I've never actually used this technique (thankfully), but it looks the shiz to me and I would definately give it a crack if I was 3km out and floating away from the shore.

http://www.boards.co.uk/articles/index.asp?ID_A=25&article_type=11

It involves taking the top half of your mast and pushing it into the broken bottom half, re-rigging the sail with the top half flapping. Looks ugly, but will get you home.

Gonewindsurfing247 said...

Can I just ask why you didn't ditch the mast, ie why bother towing back a broken mast?

Never broken a mast before and wanted the proof, I wasn't in any grave danger (due to having 2 guys sailing with me), .....and besides, I'm nearly out of rod holders!

Leech said...

What would you have done if there was no one to tow you, Sailhack??

Probably panic!!! What worries me, is that I've been out there by myself a few times, and had some real good sessions! I won't be doing that again...Thankful that the day it happened I had backup! A lesson learned!

Thanks Grumplestiltskin.....I wondered if I could've done that, now I know how to, I hope I never need to!

stribo said...

I bet the cheese and kisses loved that broken mast on her nice kitchen bench sailhack

Haha...actually, I took the pic while she was bathing the rugrats...packed up straight away!

I have seen three break in the same place in the past few weeks, lucky they were close to shore and a quick swim back in. The owners were also lucky they had them replaced. Should try an RDM Gaastra or fibrespa haven't seen ant broken ones yet.