We raised anchor yesterday (Thursday) in Fishing Creek (OFF the St. Pierre Creek; Which is off the South Edisto River in South Carolina)…. We pulled anchor fairly early, wanting the EBB Tide to push us out to the Atlantic Ocean…. The channel is fairly well marked… FEW buoys, but in critical locations… (shoaling).
We raised the Mains’l while in the South Edisto river…. And it served us well all the way into the night…. For drive and stability…
BUT..about 0345 Hours Friday morning… as we’re approaching St. mary’s GA… the wind kicked up…. And I thought I’d better reduce sail a bit…. WELL…. That was a good thought BUT it didn’t work out so well…
I went below and woke Susan… because we never go out on deck at night when NO ONE else is in the cockpit…. (even with auto-pilot…etc.)
So… as I was lowering the sail for reefing…. The new patches I had put on the STRONG TRACK caught the brass sail slides…. JAMB !!! DAMN !!! Now the sail won’t go up or down…. NOT GOOD… in a 20+ breeze, in the ocean…
SO… after tugging by hand a few times…unsuccessfully… I used the windlass… and promptly UNJAMBED the slides… and ripped the patches completely OFF the “strong track”…. Where upon, just about every sail SLIDE… came out of the mast track on the way down…. SO… basically I ended up with 49 feet of Mains’L in my arms….standing next to the boom….
BUT at least it was down….and everyone was safe…. We motored on to ST. Mary’s GA Inlet… and entered the channel in the dark…. It’s a very good thing we’ve done this a few times…
Entering in the dark is scary enough without dozens of fishermen racing toward YOU… out to sea….(also in the dark/ at FULL speed).
So We’re anchored at Cumberland Island after 135 nautical miles of travel from SC to GA…
N 30 45.34 W 081 28.59 (30.75574 -81.47648)
I called the Sail Track folks at Tides Marine with our Serial NUMBER…. They gave me a price for replacement… and details…. We’ll have it shipped to a friend down here in VERO Beach.
I think we can replace this track without a rigger…. And with just a few friends.