Hey everyone,
Got the old Nacra 5.2 out for the first time this year. Not a very good start to the season though!! I spent the last 2 weekends replacing all the running and standing rigging as well as installing a roller furler on my boat.
Wow, what a mistake!;) Not because of the quality of the parts, just because with that many changes and my own relative inexperience it caused a whole series of issues. As the saying goes, there's nothing wrong with the motor just the nut behind the wheel.
It started out OK on Saturday, when I finished the work. It all looked pretty good, except that it was blowing something like 60 kph out and there was NO WAY I was going to go out in that breeze with just my wife for the first sail of the year. Sunday looked better, shifting wind but it wasn't horribly strong.
So I stepped my mast, and found out that either I mis-measured the forestay and/or Murray's stock shrouds are somewhat shorter than what came on mine. Either way I knew that without having the shrouds to measure last winter I was taking a chance. Solved the problem with a second 10 hole adjuster on the forestay (not an unusual solution to such a problem).
So I get everything together and by mid afternoon we are ready to go. I figure we will just take a quick out and back to make sure the new sail works and to get the kinks out. I don't even bother to setup the little 14 foot aluminum boat and motor for my Dad if we get into trouble. I will just be out for 15 minutes anyway. BAD IDEA!
My wife and I go out about 2 km and I bury the bow, the wind is much stronger than I thought. We recover without dumping it (thank god for 5.2 hull volume) but I realize that I have setup the jib sheets wrong, I can't cleat them. OK no prob, roll up the jib and I will fix it when I get back. We keep sailing and I hear an ominous clunk, I say "what was that!?" but we couldn't see anything and nothing appears broken so I figure, something new must have settled into place.
I jibe around and go towards my shore, unfortunately the wind has shifted I can only point up to to a location about 4 km away from my cabin. No problems I will tack back out and zig zag my way back. The only issue is that me and my wifer are both around 220 lb each, we have no jib and my wife hasn't a clue about sailing and weight distribution. I try 4-5 times but can't get the boat to tack. I end up in irons every time mostly because I barely know what I'm doing for a tack and the wife just does what I say without any awareness of what is going on around the boat. The last time we try to tack, we both end up on the leeward side when the wind catches the sail and we almost go over. My wife does go over backwards into the water. So I'm in irons and I get my wife holding onto the dophin striker. She loses her prescription sunglasses that I dive after but miss. I heave myself back up and get to work trying to get her on board. Unfortunately my new trap wires are about 12" shorter than the old ones so my old trick of throwing my feet onto the front beam and hauling myself onto the hull doesn't work so good for my wife who is 5' tall. Also her new PFD is loose and floating up around her shoulders. Argh, I try everything but still can't haul her up. I lower my main so we will stop moving and pile it on the tramp but still no luck. I fashion a stirrup from my main sheet, but still can't do it. She wants me to leave her and she will swim back. And I say bull shit she ain't leaving the boat! It's like a 5 km swim. Fortunately a young guy who is an awesome sailor on a sunfish comes by and asks if he can help. He manages to haul my wife onto his boat .
Once she is safe I'm like OK I will unfurl the jib and sail back. So I start to do that, I sail towards a small island about 3 km away from my cabin. My wife is being sailed back to my cabin to get the powerboat just in case (my father is pretty much clueless at this point).
I get in front of the island and figure out what the clunk was, my right rudder pin had broken and chose that time to fall out. All the sudden, I'm dragging a rudder and being pulled towards the island. I try to roll up the jib but a piece doesn't roll and gives me enough windage to drive me at the island. My cottage is in the canadian shield meaning no sand, all rocks. At the last second I jump off the front to grab the boat and the bows and daggers just grind a little on the rocks at the shore. I'm like, OK I will beach it on the rocks until help comes. No such luck, a gust catches the jib and drags me away for the island hanging onto the dolphin striker. I'm under the boat and am under way. Now that extra couple of inches of trap wire could have come in handy. I'm plowing under the water holding on for dear life trying to grab the trap wire to haul myself up. No way am I letting the boat go and smash into the rocks on the far shore! I heave myself up and just get my fingertips on the trap handle and pull myself up using what I figure was my last bit of strength. I've never been so scared in my life, I thought I was going to drown. So now I'm on my trampoline and refurl the jib. I look around and my brand new main is gone!! I can see it floating near the island a km or so behind me. I have no steering so there isn't much I can do except hang on. It didn't dawn on my until later to undo the cross bar and steer with one rudder.
By this time my dad and uncle are coming out with the little 14 foot and 10 hp motor. They get close to me drifting and I yell like crazy "My Sail is By the Island, Save My Sail". I paid good money for Chip Buck's work and damned if I am going to let it sink. They take off leaving me drifting with my jib luffing like mad, I didn't really care if it ripped a this point. Fortunately they found my sail floating about a foot below the water, almost at the point of sinking and saved it. I had drifted another km or two with the just windage of the boat and the fluttering jib. They fired me a ski rope and after a couple of tries in which I finally figured out how to get the rudders detached I was able to steer it. Another hour (we were 5 km away from home with a 10 hp motor, you do the math) and I got home. About a 5 hour ordeal or so on a lake only about 8 feet deep and 10 km by 10 km.
The morals of the story:
1. Make sure everybody on the boat can get in from deep water BEFORE you go out.
2. Cinch up your PFDs
3. Go over your rigging several times before ever putting a sail on.
4. Wrap your main sail around the boom when you lower it.
5. Carry one of those Murray's spare parts bags or make your own.
6. Know what too much wind looks like.
7. Make sure you have communication with someone on shore (2 way, cell phone, vhf, etc). I left my 2 ways at home his weekend.
8. Sail with someone who knows what they are doing (not possible in my case because I'm the most experienced sailor I know).
If any 1 of the things that went wrong wouldn't have, I wouldn't be writing this story right now. If some of the good things that happened didn't, it could have been a disaster (more likely a damaged boat than anything else simply because we were wearing our PFD's). Now I have scared the bejeebers out of myself so I will be extra careful and extra prepared (like Mr. Andrew Scott has been saying over and over and over).
Fortunately within an hour the boat was as good as new and everything sorted out. Now I just need some encouragement to go back out on it.
edited by: Wolfman, May 24, 2010 - 08:02 PM
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Hard start to the season
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Posted: May 24, 2010 - 05:24 PM
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Posted: May 24, 2010 - 06:06 PM
oh man scary story
i've had just the 1 sail on my 5.2 this year and even though it was only light winds i went out without the jib because i hadn't fully rigged the trap wires and i like to ease myself and the boat back into the season slowly
really good idea to get some practise backing the boat out of irons. and best to do those drills in light winds where you have more time to work out what you're doing and the stakes are lower
what works for me is that when i'm in irons i usually end up sitting at the back centre of the tramp thinking "now what"
got it down fine now, i grab the boom and push it AND the tiller in the direction i want the boat go
and i keep pushing the backwinded main to the end of the traveller track as the water gurgles around the transom and the boat backs round to 45degrees off the wind
from there if you pull in the main too quick you'll just weathervane the hulls back into irons so it's
- let go the boom and stop pushing the rudders, then with the main fluttering slowly pull in the sheet until it fills while gently steering off on your new tack
go out with the jib furler or off and give it a go in light winds. leaving the jib and jib blocks off also opens up the tramp so unskilled crew don't get tangled in the jib sheets and caught on the wrong side of the boat
and the other way to avoid going into irons is to blow the traveller sheet as well as the mainsheet when tacking in high winds
hopefully you'll be able to source a new rudder pin locally from standard stainless rod
edited by: erice, May 25, 2010 - 08:23 AM -
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Posted: May 24, 2010 - 09:14 PM
Thanks for the advice! I will definitely be sailing jibless for a while and working on tacking without the jib, by myself until I get my technique down again. Fortunately I have a pile of spare parts so I had a couple of rudder pins ready. The boat was completely re-rigged within an hour or two of getting back in.
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Posted: May 24, 2010 - 11:32 PM
if it were easy, it wouldn't be cool...
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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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Posted: May 24, 2010 - 11:48 PM
Yep, that's true about everything worthwhile.
You can get pretty complacent on a lake that you can touch bottom on most of the time and always see your cabin. Without sails or control you might as well be in the ocean... well not quite, someone will eventually clue in and come help, I hope. If I hadn't of been panicking a bit, and quite so inexperienced I probably could have dealt with everything and sailed back with one rudder. Also a pack with a spare rudder pin would have helped. Lesson learned there.
So the Rick White Sailing videos are coming out this week. I've already ordered an emergency ladder to attach to the rear beam (let you know how that works out) and make it easier for people with limited strength to get on the boat. Then next week I am putting the wife on the cat fully rigged without sails and explaining every line and control to her. Then we are going to play 'tip the cat' so she gets a feel for how the weight shifts on the boat. Same kind of kiddy stuff I did when learning how to canoe and windsurf and should have remembered.
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Posted: May 24, 2010 - 11:57 PM
sailing anything is a tricky proposition, shifty winds, strong currents, out of tune helms, squals, grumpy in laws,...you name it...throw in the lack of a motor and increased difficulty of tacking on multihulls and you lose 99% of the population...no point and click on the water!
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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 01:14 PM
Yeah and last Sunday the wind was shifting all over the place! Makes me think about switching to a Sunfish... :) Naw!
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 02:22 PM
Me TOO lost a Nacra 5.5 to the coast gaurd tow in see story here http://www.tcdyc.com/?q=node/586 -
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 04:21 PM
Wow, that is a great story! Makes me feel a little better about my weekend. Sounds like you guys did an admirable job considering!
D.
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 05:16 PM
Don't you remember the Boy Scout's motto 'BE PREPARED' -
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 05:36 PM
In Canada it's more like, "Put your head between your legs and kiss your A$$ goodbye". :) Do the boy scouts even exist anymore?
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 10:36 PM
Here's a question. The rudder pin that broke was aluminum type. The replacements available are aluminum or stainless tube. Can I replace them with solid stainless rod? Or are they meant to break before your gudgeons tear out? I can probably source aluminum rod locally but if I can prevent a repeated breakage it would be good.
D.
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 11:25 PM
Damn, interesting story and almost a case of everything going wrong at once! -
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Posted: May 25, 2010 - 11:34 PM
Thanks, certainly not something i want to repeat (or anyone else to repeat for that matter). In hindsight if I would have been less stressed I probably could have limped it back using one rudder and the jib. Unfortunately, lack of experience and too many things going on at once overwhelmed me.
Makes me really wish I had more experienced people locally to learn skills from. Almost everything I know comes from this forum, books and youtube videos. Makes me pretty knowledgeable with the technical aspects but some practical aspects of boat handling still elude me. I'm pretty sure I make some things way more difficult than they need to be without realizing it.
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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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Posted: May 26, 2010 - 01:16 AM
just figured it out.
edited by: kingwilly, May 26, 2010 - 01:18 PM -
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Posted: May 26, 2010 - 03:51 AM
alloy tube!
no wonder it broke
mine are solid stainless on the old heavy nacra AND and the ultra modern light weta
solid alloy MIGHT work for a few years
but alloy tube would quickly wear out turning in stainless mounts and then fold at the worst possible time
someone may have fitted them to prevent tearing the transoms if they hit a rock or sandbar at speed but that's what the pivotmatics release is fitted to the nacra rudders for
edited by: erice, May 26, 2010 - 06:30 PM -
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Posted: May 26, 2010 - 04:43 AM
after getting comfortable backing the boat out of irons another useful technique for racing and man-over-board situations is learning how to park the boat on the water
basically you pull in the jib real tight, release the mainsheet and traveller and then kill off the last of the boats momentum but crash tacking the rudders
the boat should come around to just past head to wind and then you push the tiller AWAY from you as if you are trying to turn into wind
the loose main should be completely stalled and the backwinded jib slowly trying to drive the boat across on to the new tack BUT as the rudders are trying to steer into the wind every time it makes some forward motion it just rounds up again in a mexican stand-off
with a bungee to hold the rudders across, (tho i just put my foot on the tiller) you can let go of everything and use 2 hands to eat lunch or even help pull someone aboard
like any sailing drill on an over-powered practise it in light winds until it becomes 2nd nature and then move on to medium winds
(to unpark it, you just pull the tiller -so the rudders start working with the backwinded jib in stead of against it- wait for the boat to come around to a broadreach position, pull in mainsheet and traveller and then once underway, release the jib and bring it around to the correct side
edited by: erice, May 26, 2010 - 06:47 PM -
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Posted: May 26, 2010 - 08:16 AM
One thing that I learned and would like to share is:
When you are overboard and trying to re enter but have difficultly. Get the righting line and drop it and tie a foot loop in it to help get back on board. It makes a huge difference to get help from a leg when you are on a slick hull. -
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Posted: May 26, 2010 - 12:00 PM
The one thing I learned is stay out of the Gulf in North winds if something breaks you can get into trouble fast! -
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Posted: May 27, 2010 - 02:17 PM
I am a still active with a scout group. I get to teach all the young boys how to sail on our little bravo.
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