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Replacing a Sailboat Intermediate Shroud at Sea by vincent bossley
Making good time sailing into the advancing twilight of yet another magnificent tropical
evening, all is well with the world and she is feeling quite grand, settling in for a good
nights’ progress toward Manihi. Skipping along on a port tack, her cutwater effortlessly
slicing through the faintly ruffled but slinky water, she knows she is cutting a fine image,
and just faintly irritated she has no gallery of onlookers to acknowledge her finery. Her
crew appreciate the show, but some recognition from others would do wonders for her
self esteem – she likes to show off just as much as the next ship!
Pride always comes before a fall and with no warning whatsoever and certainly with no foreknowledge on her
part or the crew a thundering crack shatters the evening calm. Her captain and sibling
crew race up the companionway to see Anglo crew staring skyward at a lazily swinging
starboard intermediate shroud. It has parted at the upper spreader tang, dropped into a
half hoop and now drooping out to starboard. Aghast, her crew stare at one another.
Having heard and read many stories of yachts losing their rigs at sea, thousands of miles
from the nearest yard, because of failed rigging, they are speechless for a few moments.
The scene before their eyes spells disaster if they cannot effect a solution quickly. She
brings her head around through the wind, and into the hove to position. She is most
remorseful but hasn’t time to worry about that now. Fortunately, the weather is benign
and her crew determine that providing they remain on a port tack, the port side rigging
will take the very considerable strain. Equatorial darkness is now upon them, so they
secure the swinging end to the starboard lifelines and plan to jury rig another shroud in
the morning. Immediate crisis over she returns to her heading, gingerly gathering speed
again with no apparent problem.
‘Phew, that was tricky’, she thinks. Maybe she will get out of this one relatively lightly?
Head down and serious she now wants to atone for her earlier rush of vanity.
Over an obligatory nerve settling cup of coffee, her shaken crew discuss the problem.
Firstly, Manihi Atoll being sparsely inhabited and therefore unlikely to be of assistance is
struck off the itinerary. Her course is altered to Rangiroa Atoll which has the greatest
population in the Tuamotus’. Fishing is the mainstay income earner for most of these
atolls and that means boats, ropes, cables, wires, will be in abundance – sailors are the
same the world over! Into their second cup and with their minds more settled with some
reasoned thinking, the major implications of the problem appear to recede for the moment.
Given that if all things remain equal, most of her sailing will be on the port tack the entire
way to Tahiti, where they know all things marine are available. They are carrying a
considerable length of spectra rope and this will be fashioned into a replacement
shroud tomorrow. This Spectra line has an even lower stretch factor than Kevlar and if it
can be drawn down tight enough over the spreaders and onto the deck fittings it may
suffice until they make landfall in Papeete.
When Mother Nature is in the frame, nothing is equal. She carries out her vocation at her
discretion. Running a printout from the weatherfax shows no alteration in the weather
pattern anywhere in the area of the ocean they are sailing – just the steady SSE trades the
whole way across this sector. Within an hour of their mishap however, cloud covers the
night sky, blackening out the stars. The rising wind backs, bringing rain with it, and our
little ship is continually buffeted. It is suddenly squall like, with winds up to thirty knots and likely to come from any direction. Thirty minutes into these conditions, the captive hoop of steel wrestles itself free and commences a pattern of wild arcs amidships. Its
main target is the mainmast and every few seconds this eleven millimetre diameter steel
punch wants to embed itself into the aluminium spar. The tang originally attached to the
end has long since disappeared into the sea with a loud hiss, leaving a lethal steel rod hell bent on penetrating anything in its swooping path. Aluminium, wood or a skull would
make no difference, in that all would accept the flying projectile to a depth dependant on
its own physical resistance.
Her mainsail had been dropped earlier at the beginning of the squall attack, and she is
sailing under genoa only, therefore her sails are under no threat of damage. How to
quickly secure this flailing missile and survive before it wreaks major havoc? With a now
heaving deck her skipper, lifejacketed and clipping onto the jackline, scrambles
portside. Crew, shining the weaving spotlight in the general direction through the rain,
observe the wet and glistening shroud flashing back and forth through the beam – they
are thankful to be in the cockpit still. Her captain, crouching low and dodging it at the
same time, attempts to catch it as it swoops past. By the time it reaches the end of its arc
to port it is way too high anyway, and out of reach – so plan A is not going to succeed.
By now, it has whacked the mast many times already, fortunately, not always head on.
Crew, seeing the black shape slumped in the port scupper think he has given up or been
hit. He rises again, this time with the port side halyard loose in his hand and following
several misses manages to catch the tip in the slack halyard, whip the cord around the
steel as many times as possible, draw it down taut and fix it to a port side pad eye. Job
done, he straightens and scuttles back into the cockpit grinning from ear to ear. No doubt
he thinks he is a hero now, not realising that it was a pure stroke of luck the shroud
caught in the halyard on its wildly gyrating path. However, the possibility of any further
immediate damage being eliminated, she is content, allowing him to bask in his thirty
seconds of fame. Tomorrow is another day, when options will be examined, but for now
cosy bunks are awaiting. Filled they are, leaving the remaining crew on watch to ponder
what might have been.
Gently swinging from her mast head, her captain surveys the scene all around him. A brilliant tropical morning, swept fresh and crystal clean by the overnight rain, leaves a scintillating picture. Three hundred and sixty degrees of perfect and sparkling blue disc encircles her, holding her permanently captive, dead centre. Swivelling his head, he marvels at the outrageous extent of it. Endless, like a womans’ love, the blue ocean seemingly stretches to infinity. The canopy overhead is without blemish, but for several fluffy and harmless looking thunderheads dotted low on the horizon in the south west quadrant. Probably hovering over some distant speck of land, but being so far off, cannot be seen over the horizon. For the rest, a broad canvas of wide shades of blue, lightly brushed with glittering sparkles as the sun reflects from the wave tips in the wispy breeze.
No camera, restricted as they are to a small window, will ever be capable of capturing the
overall uplifting feeling of seeing and being part of such a scene. Pumped full with a
tranquil joy of being alive, her captain turns his head to the job at hand.
Dawn breaking, as it had this morning, into a beautiful unruffled day with only a light
breeze on her stern, her captain had decided a trip up the mast was in order to see what
could be done about her errant shroud. He would also inspect Miguels’ swage on her
forestay.
‘Waste of time even looking at that!’ she says, ever practical, ‘good or bad, what does he
imagine he could do about it out here?’
Human nature being what it is, there was no way he wasn’t going to be hoisted up the
extra height to the truk for an inspection. Apart from anything else, that is as high as he
can go on her and he will go there! Normally at sea, a trip up the mast would only be
contemplated in an emergency. Five degrees of movement on deck translates to a fifteen
to twenty degree arc up here. It is imperative that the mast is clamped firmly between the
thighs of the climber to avoid swinging out and slamming back into the spar. These
youngsters doing a round the world race, go up in all weathers – the fearlessness of youth
no doubt propelling them. One becomes a little more prudent with age.
Miguels’ engineering masterpiece is of course flawless and he feels a spurt of affection
for that moustachioed man and the product of his craft. Three thousand five hundred
nautical miles in their wake, toiling he will be still. Drinking in the view, lingering as
long as is practicable without the crew on deck becoming suspicious, distracted (it’s a
twenty metre drop to the deck!) or just leaving him up there, he hails the deck to lower
him to the intermediate spreader. Hooked to his belt is the spectra line, and in his
pouch a replacement tang. Glancing down the whole length of rope all the way to the
deck, he is momentarily fascinated by the convoluted gyration it takes from in close to
the mast, to way out over the sea. With its woven diamond blue and white pattern it looks
much like a very long and very lazy python, snaking all the way up to his rear end!
‘Come on’, she checks him, ‘get on with the job!’
It is relatively easy to double loop the spectra cord through the tang, hook it into the
keyhole in the mast and drop the two loose ends down to deck level for attaching to the
deck fitting. On the way down he checks the leather spreader end covers for wear.
Back on deck with several inner thigh skin burns, the results of which are deposited
somewhere up and down the mast, the episode is shared over a cooling beer – cannot rush
these jobs at sea!
Thoughts of lazy days in those far off, but approaching ever closer, fabled south sea
islands, spur them on, and her captain and Anglo crew set about drawing down the jury
rig shroud as taut as their combined strength will allow. With no block and tackle system
available that would work in this situation, they will have to rely on pure physical
strength. This is quite considerable in Anglo crew but her captain’s contribution will be
somewhat puny by comparison. Being on the starboard side, the slack side, they surprise
themselves as to the degree of tension they are able to exact upon the brute. Even tension
with its twin intermediate shroud on the port side is not so much an issue now, as having
in place a rig that will keep the standing rigging upright without breaking or collapsing.
In the event, the product of their exertions preserves this premise admirably all the way to
Papeete Port. Meanwhile, the arrival of a platter of steaming scones liberally coated with
globs of rapidly melting bright yellow butter part way through the operation, undoubtedly
inject them with sufficient hairy chested drive to crank down that extra pound or two
required.
‘Men!’ she thinks, ‘they’re so easy!’
The completed assembly, without too close an inspection, looks passably shipshape.
Strong enough for fair to moderate weather anyway, and her crew admire their
resourceful handiwork from her cockpit. Both she and her captain pray for the Trades to
hold until Tahiti.
You can download the complete ‘Voyage of the Little Ship Tere Moana’ on my website for sailors http://www.sailboat2adventure.com
About the Author
Vincent Bossley is a sailor and publisher living on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia. His website http://www.sailboat2adventure.com is dedicated to sailors dreaming or planning on one day sailing the oceans of this beautiful planet of ours in their own dream sailboat. You can download his ebook ‘Voyage of the Little Ship ‘Tere Moana’ of his own four year lifetime adventure and much more other sailing stuff useful to the planning ocean voyager.
