Midnight Emergency
Sailing Joia
Stuart Jackson
Fri 26 Apr 2024 00:00
On watch at 12:30 am, I noticed the moving around more than normal. Going to the mast to inspect things, I saw that the gooseneck had come apart and the boom was now completely disconnected from the mast. This was not good. The boom on JOIA is a heavy V-shape with furling mandrel inside and 23 feet long - too heavy for one person to lift easily. This was now bumping into the mast and threatening to gradually demolish the rig.
I called for all hands on deck and help began to arrive. I found a 1/2” diameter pin on deck that had worked loose. If we could get it back in place, all might be saved, but how to do so given all the forces pushing the boom in different directions? I got another crew member to help me try to dampen the motion of the boom at the mast as we searched for a solution. Gradually we found ways to mitigate the forces: easing the vanguard which was firing the boom towards the mast, furling the jib and turning upwind to reduce forces on the mainsail. Now if we could just align the boom with its fitting on the mast, maybe we could get the critical pin back in. The mainsail and halyard was now bearing the weight of the inboard end of the boom which had sunk 2 inches below its normal level. With the boom and mainsail too heavy to lift manually, we had to gradually take up the halyard fractions of an inch at a time. We eventually got the holes to the same level but they were still moving around violently making it seemingly impossible to install the heavy pin. But suddenly there was a lull, the holes momentarily lined up and we were able to push the pin home.
We were not done. We still needed to find a way to hold the pin in place, but the situation had been stabilized. With Yosh left to hold the pin in place, the rest of us searched the boat for a screw and washers that we could use to secure the pin. We finally found a solution by drilling out some spare washers to the correct diameter (sorry, our kitchen cutting board now has some extra decoration). The fix worked and we were able to start sailing again.
A little more excitement than we would have preferred, especially for Sue and Marisa in their first night as part of an offshore passage.
11:50.44S 143:20.24W
