Rigging Failure - Bye Bye Turnbuckle

08/21/02

We continued to get our brains bashed in through the night, with the winds between 20 and 30 knots.  I had the dawn watch this morning, and the first time I went up in the cockpit to look around after day break, I first looked to starboard to study the horizon for ships, then looked to port.  As I looked to port, instead of seeing the horizon as I expected, I saw a wall of water looming over the boat.  It was quite alarming, but really harmless, as the wave just passed underneath the boat, gently lifting us up and setting us down on the other side.  The wind continued to increase to a steady 30 knots this morning, and since we had already reefed the jib as much as we could, the next step was to furl the jib altogether and set the staysail.  Eric offered harnesses if we wanted to use them.  Both David and I opted to try them out.  I’m not sure I felt any safer wearing it.  The conditions weren’t so bad once we got out there.  I didn’t even get splashed.  Of course, now that we have rigged the staysail, the wind is back down to 20 knots.  We are expecting to make it to 20 degrees S latitude today, which, according to the pilot chart, should get us out of the trade winds and into the “variables”.  I don’t have a lot of faith in the pilot charts at this point, so I’m trying not to think about it.

This afternoon, towards the end of my watch, Eric came out and suggested pulling out a little jib.  We went into the cockpit, unrolled the jib a little, and I went forward to pull the port jib sheet down around the forestay, to prevent chafing, and found to my horror that the turnbuckle had broken cleanly at the screw, and the entire forestay was hanging on by the wire pennant.  I exclaimed “Holy Shit!!  The turnbuckle’s broken!”  I turned back to Eric and said we would need to get the staysail down right away, that the turnbuckle is broken.  He came forward and confirmed, and we got David and furled the staysail.  Eric then went down below and found a spare turnbuckle that he had purchased at a nautical flea market in the Caribbean, and we started the process of replacing it.  The seas were still pretty heavy, and I had to hand steer downwind to reduce the effects of the waves.  This failure does not give us a warm feeling, as the turnbuckle that broke is the same turnbuckle as on the rest of the standing rigging.  If this had happened to any of the other turnbuckles, the results could be catastrophic.  All we can do is be glad they didn’t and hope for the best.