Mishap

[Brion Toss]

Hi all,
Here's a letter that you might be interested in seeing. I'm printing both it and my response.

Hi Brion,

I heard a cruising couple doing a talk a month ago about a mishap that happened to them in the South Pacific aboard their Saga 43. While on night watch, pleasantly sailing down wind, he got complacent and did not reduce sail as he watched a squall approaching from behind on the radar. They got caught in the squall, which was much stronger than he thought it would be. The winds shifted 90 degrees and increased about 25 to 30 knots from what they had been. Their main had a preventer and was now back winded, the genoa was also backwinded. They quickly furled in the genoa and their furling line (a very strong hi-tech one) was unfortunately allowed to fall overboard and their boat drifted across it. They thought they should use their engine to help regain control of their boat. They then started their engine and it all went sideways really fast. Their hi-tech furling line got wrapped around their shaft and bent the shaft and the strut. They did have a line cutter attached to the shaft, but it does not work in this kind of a situation.

Many lessons learned; always reduce sail when you see a squall approaching on radar, properly stow the furling line, ........

The question I have is would it have made much of a difference if they did not use a hi-tech (strong) line for the furling gear?


An underwater photo of the bent prop strut. The line wrapped around the propeller , pulling the whole assembly to the left, bending the bronze strut to the shape of a banana!

[My reply]
Great story. As for the what-might-have-been, HM rope is much harder to cut than Dacron, and it might have made a difference; the line cutter would have been more likely to cut through Dacron. But plenty of similar events have occurred with Dacron lines, and there’s no guarantee that one could have been cut here. It might be more pertinent to ask why the furling line was HM, and how it managed to fall overboard. Re the first question, there’s no advantage over Dacron, either for sail control or suitable strength, plus HM line tends to be harder to handle, as it is stiffer. Re the going overboard, I’d love to know where the last lead block was on this boat.
Finally, as we’ve seen in so many jury-rigging events, it is a good practice always to check for overboard lines before putting the engine in gear.

Fair leads,
Brion Toss