It’s not only Runners that suffer Chafe......

Samaritan
Tim Vaughan
Sun 12 May 2019 15:01
Sunday 12th May

Had a cracking sail home from the Isles of Scilly, we left Saturday morning and arrived home at 05.00 on Sunday morning. It was a fantastic clear night with a half moon, loads of stars and a lovely, steady N/NE wind, bloody cold though!

After catching up a few hours sleep, I set about putting everything away and found a badly chafed main halyard (the rope that pulls the big sail up) and it wasn’t like that when we set off Saturday morning. This sort of thing could cause a pretty serious situation if it completely parted under load so I was a bit concerned what had caused it to wear so quickly. I had never had problems before (not that I’m a runner!)

Didn’t take long to find the cause - it was me! I had crossed the halyards over at the top of the mast after winching Mandy up the other day. Fortunately, it was simple to fix and the worn bit was only 300mm from the end.

Irritatingly, looking back I had an inkling that something wasn’t quite right when I was lifting the sail up before coming home.

Note to self - check, check and double check and don’t ignore your instincts!

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