Survived the hurricane! Well, except for...

[SV Melody]

Hello all!

Made it through the hurricane here in lovely St. Augustine. Compared to the recent few years' storms, this one wasn't actually all that bad around here. I can't believe how awful the Bahamas got hit - if the CF community is planning to do anything to help out down there, I'll be happy to lend whatever assistance I possibly can.

On to the issue. I got to my boat earlier this morning to look her over. She was hauled out for a bottom job and some (all) thru-hulls getting replaced, along with a bunch of new seacocks and some other little odds and ends. Nobody knew there would be a hurricane when we pulled her so the enormous OEM-size genoa was still rigged and I couldn't take it down before the storm hit, so that's where I thought I'd see damage from the winds. Nope. What did happen though is the outhaul car/line seems to have been slamming around (I winched and clutched all the lines to a decently taut state before I left, but some of them moved a bit anyway), in the process it destroyed the little stopper/track end piece at the fwd end of my track on the boom. The track itself also now can slide about 6" so I'm guessing the aft stopper got pushed (?) somehow. It didn't used to be able to move at all. The dirt outline where the track is supposed to be indicated that the aft stopper has been moved and is cracked, the front one is just totally broken.

The two stoppers are original as in 20+ years old. The FL sun hasn't been terribly kind to them and the plastic bits were pretty much shot before the storm. I was planning to replace them before next season but now I kinda have to replace them if I want to go anywhere under sail.

So. Where does one go or who do I contact to determine: A) What company made this part (Z-Spar boom, most of the hardware elsewhere is Lewmar, so I think they built it but long since discontinued this exact set)? B) What are my options given that it's unlikely the direct replacement part still exists? C) What are the critical dimensions I'll need to measure to determine a suitable new replacement set? If it means changing and replacing the track section and outhaul car too, I guess that's what it'll take. Either way.

I've done about as much internet searching as is possible and can't find any mention of the part numbers or engineering type diagrams/build sheets for any of this stuff. I'm going to send a hail mary email to Beneteau USA to see if they have any idea what parts they used to build my boat, but my hopes are not high that they'll have that info readily available. Same for Z-Spars and Lewmar. If this was a 2 year old boat, I'm sure this would be a much easier answer to find. But she's not.

I'll try to get some pictures next time I go down to the marina of the little parts in question. If I had thought of it while I was there, I guess I could have taken the aft one off to bring home since it's still mostly intact. I'd imagine anybody with a similar age Oceanis in the 40' range and with a Z-Spars furling mast/boom would have similar hardware, so if anyone has replaced their outhaul system for something else without having to replace or heavily modify the boom, please do tell. Thanks everybody and watch out for those pesky hurricanes!

Mike -- S/V Melody

[a64pilot]

Get a good rigger, many times pieces parts like that are custom made and often times riggers have contacts for people with lathes that will custom manufacture parts, it makes it much easier if you have a part that survived, even if it’s cracked, then there is no drawings a designing etc, just make like this.