Until some time this afternoon I was fairly convinced that we had utterly destroyed the spinnaker this past weekend.
While there is little evidence to the contrary as far as my sail maker is concerned, we have set the cruising spinnaker on this boat and on our last boat several times without having to use a knife to get it down. Unfortunately the last two times this has not been the case. Towards the end of last season was the first hideous takedown; yesterday it was the set and not the douse that nearly was the death of our spinnaker.
We spent a lovely Fourth of July weekend on Block Island, where we rafted with some friends and had a generally nice time in spite of some thick fog on the way out. Leaving Sunday, we had a nice Southwesterly breeze for the sail home. Perfect Spinnaker weather. So I carefully pre-rigged the spinnaker on the deck and got it almost all ready to go for when the wind was at a better angle. As we sailed North to the 1BI marker we agreed that the wind would be better for a set after we passed the mark. With winds around 12-15 knots on a broad reach this would be fast and fun.
We were already making almost 8 knots of speed when we started bearing off for Point Judith. I went forward to complete the rigging, then switched places with my wife so that she could do the hoist, as I am more comfortable with sailing the boat deep down wind without jibing it still. With some small adjustments we got the spinnaker up in it’s sock. Then we raised the sock and shortly thereafter all hell broke loose.
As best we can figure it we were sailing too deep and had the sail too blanketed – it did not have enough air to fill. So it wrapped around the head stay very quickly and got very tight. About this time the wind started to pick up. We tried for some time to get the kite down, but the wind wrapped it tighter and tighter, the waves were getting choppy and working on the foredeck needed two hands. We decided in what later proved to be a profoundly stupid move that we should head to the Harbor of Refuge and drop the anchor so we could deal with the fouled sail.
Bad Move.
We got to the harbor of refuge mostly sailing under main sail alone – making 7.5 knots or so. As we turned in to the harbor and prepared to anchor we figured out that the wind had now piped into the twenties. Unfortunately we proceeded with our original plan and did a quick anchoring. After a few minutes of this – yes the water was flat but the wind was howling – we realized this was worse than being on the open water. The sail was being blown back into the rig, and it was at this point that we did the real damage. We got it a little loose, just enough to get sucked into the rig, snap off some cormorant spikes, beat the speaker on our loud hailer to shards, and get stuck in the rigging. At this point the sail started to shred and tear on the remaining anti-bird spikes and other points in the rig.
We quickly realized this was a huge mistake, and our best bet was to run for home as fast as we could with the main sail blanketing the sail as much as possible to minimize flogging and shaking. So we did. With visions of making the “sail of shame” in front of my yacht club to my mooring with this massive spinnaker tangled in my rig I started making phone calls to some friends, my rigger, etc. to see about arranging help when we got in.
As we approached the area between Narragansett and Jamestown I sailed over close to the high bluffs of Bonnet Shores, hoping to get in the lee of the cliffs and catch a break on the flogging. We were concerned that the rig would get shaken apart from the beating and had secured a halyard forward just in case the head stay broke. Fortunately, my guess was right and we caught a big break in the wind. Enough so we could loosen up the spinnaker from the head stay and start getting it down.
Unfortunately the tape on the foot had gotten firmly caught on a hook on one of the spreaders. We tried to dislodge it several ways, but failed. The only solution was to send someone up the rig, but I did not deem this a safe alternative with just two of us on the boat, in open water, and no halyards free to send someone up – we would have had to use the topping lift to hoist my wife up from behind the mast and I did not feel this was safe. Instead, I snagged part of the sail with the boat hook and hauled it down hard – ripping the cloth but getting it closer. We finally use some blocks to winch the spinnaker sheet down to get the foot line close enough to cut. When it was cut the rest of the sail collapsed down, and within a few minutes we had what was left of the sail down the hatch and stowed.
The wind had dropped but become erratic in this fairly closed place, but we still managed to have a decent sail the rest of the way. Fast and fun, had our moods been a bit lighter though mine certainly improved with the sailing.
This morning it was time to pay the butcher’s bill. I ordered a new loudhailer speaker (in fact the old one had failed in the fog en route to Block Island on Friday – this incident saved me the trouble of diagnosing and fixing it at least!) and put in a work order for replacement of the broken bird spikes. But the stop I had been dreading was the sail makers. I had dropped the chute off not a month or two before to repair the cut straps on the sock from last year’s adventure, and now I was sheepishly returning after screwing it up again after having it up for not even a minute.
I was happy that after only the mildest of ribbing I was told the sail was easily fixable and would be ready for next weekend. My wife is of two minds about this, while she is happy not to need a new spinnaker I think she might have enjoyed taking a knife to this one just a little too much.
