We ran into a bridge!

[sailorladd]

Originally Posted by SailingAround

We were sailing around between two bridges today, lost steering and got pushed into a closed highway bridge. We got pulled off and the mast is still up, but the forestay and backstay are now much looser than they were.

I'm concerned about the rigging. We don't have 8k dollars to replace it.

I'm planning on tightening them tomorrow. The wind will be 10-13 mph.

The side stays - the lower cable stays. Are still tight. The mast is keel stepped.

Advice greatly appreciated!

You can surely replace any stays that bore the brunt of the accident after replacing them, give all the stays the "torture" test pull heavily on them at 90 degrees to them as well as look carefully at the rigging screws with a magnifying glass for any hairline cracks, I bet this would cost a fraction of the 8K you suggest...as a boat owner you need to know how to do these things, also wonder how you "lost steering" ...???

[Boatyarddog]

Originally Posted by sailorladd

You can surely replace any stays that bore the brunt of the accident after replacing them, give all the stays the "torture" test pull heavily on them at 90 degrees to them as well as look carefully at the rigging screws with a magnifying glass for any hairline cracks, I bet this would cost a fraction of the 8K you suggest...as a boat owner you need to know how to do these things, also wonder how you "lost steering" ...???

Sailing between two bridges, NO ENGINE, that's how.

Not enough forward movement is my guess...
Inexperience.
Boatyarddog

[sailorladd]

No engine at all, or broken engine? Could you not have rounded up into whatever wind there was and drop an anchor, to sort out whatever issue you had?

[Boatyarddog]

Originally Posted by sailorladd

No engine at all, or broken engine? Could you not have rounded up into whatever wind there was and drop an anchor, to sort out whatever issue you had?

From post #9

We got towed to the other side of the bridge - where we can more easily sail away. The engine does not currently run.

I will check with binoculars and post back. What are some things that I should look for?
Cracks, breaks, fittings pulled loose....

Before going to sleep I did check what I could with the flashlight. Chainplates, stays up to about halfway -- nothing looks broken from here... but like JPA Cate mentioned -- they didn't loosen themselves.

That is it, not currently running.
Boatyarddog

[Atcowboy]

Originally Posted by Boatyarddog

I agree, there's a lot of skepticism going on here.
Guys what do you do when a sudden slacking of your forestay happens out at sea.
Schedule a rigger inspect?
Or, ?
.....
Boatyarddog

I like to fire up the commodore 64, get on cruiser's forum, showcase my keyboard captain "six pack" (of high life) and inform chicken little that the sky is falling and gobs of flaming money should be thrown at it with all haste. Scuttle the ship, commit seppuku, hire sixteen riggers, 27 cranes, and call in the coast guard with an RNLI chaser.

I know we're all in an information vacuum here since he hasn't responded (with the berating, I mean greeting, he got I'm not surprised) but I'd still like to posit a guess. If nothing on deck is suspicious AND the cap shrouds and lowers are still tight, kinda sounds like the mast head cracked. If the cast mast head cracked athwartship but is still captured in the end of the mast extrusion, that would allow only the forestay and the back stay to loosen since the cap shrouds are on tangs slightly further down. I think this is a very low odds failure but would be fascinating to hear about.

I think a more likely scenario is the mast bent just above the lowers, but didn't break. A bend strictly athwartship would leave a loose cap, a tight cap, and loose fore and back stays. The loose stays due to cosine error (apparent mast shrinkage).

To the OP: welcome to the forum. Keep sailing. As others have mentioned, don't be afraid to drop anchor anywhere if that's what's needed to keep yourself safe.

- AT

[ThereAndBack]

Originally Posted by SailingAround

We will certainly hire a rigger to take a look. Depending on the damage, I may opt to buy new stays online and replace the fore and aft stays one at a time after careful research.

If you're the boat I think you are, we heard about it. If you're near New Bern, call Tyler at Duck creek marina. He is an excellent rigger (former rigger at sparcraft). His website is here: https://maveryks-marine.business.site/

[Boatyarddog]

Originally Posted by Atcowboy

I like to fire up the commodore 64, get on cruiser's forum, showcase my keyboard captain "six pack" (of high life) and inform chicken little that the sky is falling and gobs of flaming money should be thrown at it with all haste. Scuttle the ship, commit seppuku, hire sixteen riggers, 27 cranes, and call in the coast guard with an RNLI chaser.

I know we're all in an information vacuum here since he hasn't responded (with the berating, I mean greeting, he got I'm not surprised) but I'd still like to posit a guess. If nothing on deck is suspicious AND the cap shrouds and lowers are still tight, kinda sounds like the mast head cracked. If the cast mast head cracked athwartship but is still captured in the end of the mast extrusion, that would allow only the forestay and the back stay to loosen since the cap shrouds are on tangs slightly further down. I think this is a very low odds failure but would be fascinating to hear about.

I think a more likely scenario is the mast bent just above the lowers, but didn't break. A bend strictly athwartship would leave a loose cap, a tight cap, and loose fore and back stays. The loose stays due to cosine error (apparent mast shrinkage).

To the OP: welcome to the forum. Keep sailing. As others have mentioned, don't be afraid to drop anchor anywhere if that's what's needed to keep yourself safe.

- AT

Not sure if it's human nature to conclude the worst, but that happens a lot.
Binoculars would show bigger damage, smaller stuff, you just got to bite the bullet and go up or get some else to do it.
If it gets sketchy, you'll know before your halfway up.
Boatyard dog

[Atcowboy]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

If your rigging hit a solid object, like a bridge, something was damaged.

Don't take this lightly, a guy recently died from a backstay failure.

The damaged piece can fail catastrophically at any time.

A hairline crack in a $50 dollar bracket is an easy fix if you step the mast, and a professional rigger finds it, it will be thousands of dollars, and possibly a complete loss of your boat if it fails under load.

Do you have any news articles about this recent backstay death?

The $50 part part is truth though, there was a broken mast in no name harbor this winter from a failed deck level toggle on a cap shroud. I would have been beside myself that something I walk by every day failed, but there's no truth in advertising with stainless. It can be deceptive...

- AT

[Bobby Lex]

Originally Posted by TabbyCat

Are you insured? The incident sounds like an accident, so it would be covered under most policies, although parts (but not labor) may be subject to depreciation.

But...since the norm nowadays is to carry a high-deductible, and since it's already difficult to find insurance even with a history of zero claims, the OP might be understandably reluctant to go the route of making an insurance claim in this case.

Bob

[girdasso]

As others have mentioned, rigging wire does not stretch. If a thorough check of rigging at the lower level all looks undamaged and sound, It follows that the problem is at the top of the mast, either the fittings or the mast have been damaged.
You need to get the boat to a marina where you can inspect the top of the mast and repair what has failed, Most likely you will have to take the mast down and carry out the repair on the hardstand before reerecting the mast. You may be lucky and the repair may not be that expensive but sailing without fixing would be very unwise,

[thataway41]

I hear this redundant claim "rigging wire does not stretch". That is just not true. With enough force any rigging wire will begin to yield. An example happened to a boat which I was a partner. The other partner was skippering a race, where the spinnaker was caught full aback between the forestay and the mast, at a 180* wind shift at night. The boat was fully knocked down--but recovered. Fortunately the other owner sailed the boat back to its harbor only on the tack which put load on the side of the rig where the upper shroud had not yielded, and the mast was not damaged.

I noticed the upper was sagging from an apartment window across from the marina. The other skipper had not realized that there was upper shroud damage! An inspection revealed the spinnaker pole car had been driven off its track, the pole lift winch had been avulsed from the mast and the pole had chipped the fiberglass on the deck when it hit. Fortunately no crew was injured or killed!

We stabilized the mast with a spare spinnaker halyard, I removed the damaged 5/16" diameter 1x 19 rigging wire (316 SS) and took it to California swaging and rigging in Long Beach CA. They were able to test the yield strength of that cable at approx 12,500#, very close to theoretical failure point. We had checked all other points of attachment including mast tangs, pins, chain plates, etc. We did replace the turnbuckles pins tangs etc, (chain plates were examined, measured and blueprinted showing no damage) feeling that once subject to that load, best to replace most components. Replaced with new wire to specifications of the original rig. (Lowers were dual 3/8" and had not yielded. The mast was still true.)

In this case I would suspect masthead #1, failure point. Point of contact chain plate, other other attachment mechanics as #2 points of failure.

[girdasso]

i stand corrected. rigging wire does stretch if loaded to beyond its yield point. it also depends on the type of wire. some might stretch more than others.
what sort of rigging wire is it ?

[Atcowboy]

Originally Posted by girdasso

i stand corrected. rigging wire does stretch if loaded to beyond its yield point. it also depends on the type of wire. some might stretch more than others.
what sort of rigging wire is it ?

It could also have been replaced by a previous owner and never stretched with sailing. New wire will go slack at least a couple times over, until the stretch becomes so small to be negligible. It would also be interesting to hear if that was the case in this incident, again interesting odds to 1) only stretch fore and or aft stays and 2) stretch but not fully yield.

- AT

[lestersails]

Maybe I missed it (I did read the entire thread) but has the OP stated the current age of the standing rigging? I have been told that the standard lifetime of wire rigging is ten years - though I must confess that seems a bit too conservative to me. If the rigging on this boat is >>10 years, might this be a good opportunity to completely re-rig and do a thorough mast inspection at the same time?

[Trimaran Ken]

Originally Posted by Boatyarddog

I will check with binoculars and post back.

Forget binoculars. Find someone with a drone that has a decent camera. Send the drone up and take a bunch of photos from different angles. Then download the photos into a computer and zoom in on what looks interesting.


Most people with drones (like me) would be happy to do this for you because they need to justify the money they spent on their hobby.


Ken
===