Broken forestay and a trip in Jelly Bean to Swanage

Saturday,

I had planned a last minute trip to Chapmans Pool on Saturday. Three other club boats had shown interest so we arranged to be at the club for 9am. 

All was going well, there on time, transferred our stuff to Ciao Bella only to find the forestay had failed.  The top of the furling gear was flapping about and I was a little worried. 

John and I managed to secure the mast and took down the Genoa and Furler.  It loked like the trip was off.  Coffee Bean swung by and asked if all was ok,  we said yes but obviously wouldn't be going, they said they'd let Jelly Bean Tim know.   A while later Tim hailed us on the VHF  and offered o take us along with him. What a gent.

They came over and we jumped aboard.  4 big blokes on a Prelude, you'd think it would be a squeeze.  No problem, this boat feels much bigger than it ought to.

 

With a strong force 4 gusting 5 it was a good test for the Prelude.  One reef in the main and a good reef in the jib was plenty of sail to get us moving along nicely. We made good time out to Swanage and continued on towards St Aldelms head.   Despite there being some North in the wind, the headland was a bit too choppy for us.  Coffee Bean had also turn and was heading back to Swanage.  We followed suit and set about fighting the tide back to Swanage.  As I tried to raise Whisper on the VHF she came flying past.  Whisper is a Southerly 35 and had no problem bashing through to Chapmans pool.

It had taken about 15mins from Perveril point to Durleston but over and hour to make the same ground back again.  There are no photos of this part of the trip as it was a bit full on :).

Eventually into Swanage and we pick our way through a flock / swarm / plague of Kayaks... what ever the correct term is.

Ashore, we made for the Red Lion.  A  good choice of pub,  well kept real ales, good selection of farm ciders and half decent food. 

Before heading back to the boat we had to find an Ice cream.. it's the law. John caught a lift home with Mrs John as she had come round to Swanage by car.  Back aboard, we pulled up the anchor and headed for home.

Sunday,

Having had a good play on Saturday, it seemed prudent to find out what was wrong with the Forestay on Sunday.  Low tide was late afternoon so around lunchtime I went to the boat and run it up on the beach outside the club.  The forestay was actually ok so it must have been the fitting on the mast which had failed.

Normally when I drop the mast I use the furler to guide the mast down, clearly I couldn't do this this time.  I had a couple of old Mirror Gaffs in the roof of the garage which turned out to be just about the right length to make up an A frame.

The lowering went really well. although there were three of us on hand, I could see it would be possible to lower the mast single handed if needs be.  I couldn't remember what the old fitting looked like but it had disappeared completely.    The spinnaker block was sacrificed in favour of the forestay attachment and the mast went back up ready for action.  This was a great result, I had assumed I would need to identify a fitting then buy another to fit another day. 

Anyway, She's back on her mooring and ready for use, yeahaw!