Rigged up at Burrum Heads on Sunday morning and marched out to the first beacon ready for a sail behind the sandbars when I though 'bugger,I forgot to put the spare piece of rope and muesli bar into my lifejacket pocket'. After Umming and arring and looking at the last beacon 5km out I though better go back just incase.
After 3 hours of cruising around (I'm too slow to say speeding around) I pulled into the sandbar about 3ks out to fiddle with the rig when I heard a loud twang and the top webbing had snapped on the sail. Time to get a lotto ticket I reackon, pretty darn lucky to have the breakdwn while onshore, and to have the spares needed to jury rig th sail for a slog home. Could have been a very long day otherwise.

Wouldn't have been a Pryde sail, would it?

Good for you, anyway...I neglected to take the spare rope one time recently and my friend's inhaul rope broke, so he couldn't reattach the boom to the mast and was basically stuffed...if I'd had my usual spare line he could've fixed it n the water and kept sailing!

Don't know what gives it away Wet Willy but I get the feeling you're not a Pryde fan.

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pepe47 said...

Don't know what gives it away Wet Willy but I get the feeling you're not a Pryde fan.

Don't know what gives it away pepe but I think you red thumbed me!

I do actually use one Pryde sail (a V8) quite often and it's fine for my needs, but I have friends with these RS sails (RS-6, RS Slalom, RS Racing) and either the webbing breaks or the mast breaks ALL THE TIME; it's a miracle no-one has been lost at sea. They keep the sail repair guys in business, that's for sure. Maybe just a bad batch?

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Wet Willy said...

Wouldn't have been a Pryde sail, would it?

No it wasn't, but it was a pryde mast that popped through the top.