To all,
I made the mistake of misjudging the wind speed yesterday. I left the shore
where it was fairly well protected from the wind, thinking the wind was blowing
around 20. I knew it was in deep dodo as soon as I hit the wind about 200 yds
off shore. The wind was not steady, it was like rolling, or twisting
constantly. My heading was constantly shifting 20 degrees or so, just trying
to maintain a straight course. The battens kept popping from left to right,
while I bounced in and out of the water. The only thing I could think to do
was to bear off, run down wind, gibe, and come back to my starting point on the
beach. I tried 3 or 4 times to bear off but the boat refused to do so. Every
time I tried, the bow went down to the gunwale and would start to heel over.
The last attempt I tried as fast as possible. The boat heeled, and I heard a
breaking sound, like wood tearing. I thought I had broken the transom, or the
transom bar. After capsizing I couldn't find any damage. Luckily someone was
there and helped me get the mail down while capsized. Thinking all was well, I
started heading for shore under the jib, and noticed the boat steered very
sloppy, that was when I noticed what broke. The rudder was kicked off to
starboard. It lasted about 3/4 of a minute, and broke off behind the boat.
Needless to say the boat without a rudder just spins in circles. The ride out
lasted about 1 minute, the tow back in lasted about 20 minutes. I had left my
wind gauge at home and the one at the marina was broken, but the folks that run
the place thought the wind was blowing 35 gusting to 40, I didn't think it was
that high, but I really don't know.
So it appears that the rudder was the weak link. I still can't imagine the
rudder could have had enough pressure on it to break. The question is do you
make the rudder stronger, then possibly breaking the next weaker link, or let
the rudder be the weak link? Obviously the best solution is to stay on the
shore on days like this, but you can still be caught in big wind while out on
the water. I think now it would be a good idea to have a hand held VHF in my
PDF. If I had been farther out, or out of sight of the marina and this had
happened, and no one right there to assist, it would have been ugly. I believe
I would have been ok, but the boat would have eventually wound up on the rocks.
I now have a new found respect for the wind, and the need for a new rudder
blank.
I'm not sure what else I could have done, but it would be good to know what to
do if found in this situation in the future. In hind sight, I think I could
have tacked, and maybe tried to stall the boat and drift back to shore, but if
it wouldn't stall, and drift, I would have headed towards the floating piers.
I just knew I didn't want to get any further away from shore. I don't think I
could have gotten the main down and kept the boat up-right. In a one man boat
the options seem limited.
I think this is something that should be discussed, here or on the website,
since anyone could end up in a situation similar to this.
Mark
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