Little Farmers Cay, Bahamas
23.57.839N
76.19.110W
Our first challenge. We left Big Major's Spot about 9am and motorsailed the 3.5 hour journey to Little Farmers Cay in 15-20 kts. of wind--barely enough off the nose to put the sails up. We were just in the process of assessing the best approach when, POW! our main sail started falling like water over a dam. Dale started tugging on the line to bring the jib in, while I turned the boat into the wind; then he climbed outside the cockpit to try to keep the main sail out of the water. In the meantime, you can't imagine all of the flapping, slapping and horrendous noise all of this makes. He was successful in gathering it up and using a couple of ropes, secured it to the boom.
A short lesson on our boat. We have a sloop rigged boat, meaning 1 mast (among other things). We have a roller furled jib/genoa (forward sail secured by rolling it on its angle from the bow of the boat, to the top of the mast) and an in mast roller furled main sail (rolled up inside the mast but when needed, extended back along the boom to the back of the boat). Therefore, the main sail is always hoisted. When it broke, it came straight down. We have no catchment system or sail ties other boats have because we don't need them. This leaves the line that hoists the sail up at the top of the mast, which means it has to come down to get the sail back up.
Prior to our departure, Dale had hoisted me (he's not big on heights) to the top of the mast to check all of the attachment points. I remember there was no wear at the attachment point to the roller. So when he showed me a severed loop, I didn't know quite what to say.
Instead of anchoring outside of Little Farmers as we had planned, we elected to go inside and take a mooring as this would provide a calmer environment in which to ascend the mast to retrieve the line. Boy was this tricky; we were zigzagging back and forth, weaving our way in but finally found a mooring with deep water for longer than just high tide.
Short history: A few years ago Dale saw an industrial strength sewing machine in the back of one of the sail magazines. He showed it to me and told me that he thought we should get one. But believe it or not, I resisted. My little Singer did everything I wanted and anything it couldn't handle, probably was out of my realm of sewing expertise anyway. Then two years ago when we attended the Annapolis Boat Show, those machines were being demonstrated. The demonstration consisted of putting 6 - 8 layers of standard marine canvas with a layer of heavy plastic used for windows, maybe some webbing thrown in for good measure and then sewn together in one pass with a walking foot. I couldn't believe it. My little Singer would be sputtering and wheezing with anything more than 3 layers of canvas and it'd break a few needles just to spite me. Suddenly, that new machine didn't seem such an extravagance after all. Even after we bought it, I still preferred my little Singer. Then came the big trip; and the canvas work. My little Singer went into storage and this new machine took it's place. But I digress . . . sort of.
The broken loop was made of webbing that was sewn flat going up one side of the sail, pinched together to form the loop and then sewn flat again on the back side of the sail. It severed not at where the loop was hooked onto the hoist, but where it was sewn flat on the sail. Yep! You guessed it! Out came that new machine. I just happened to have some left over webbing from my canvas projects; so . . . off came the old, on went the new and up I went to retrieve the halyard. Down I came with the halyard, up went the repaired sail and then down Dale went to get a much needed a beer to recuperate from all the hoisting. The big test will come when we unfurl the sail, put 20 - 30 kts of torque on the webbing and see if it holds. It probably will do just fine until the worst possible moment, and then . . . well, that'll be another story.
