Author: Seth
Picture: Jammed Mainsail Car.
Google Earth position at 06:00: 36 08.949N, 74 21.605W


We were very fortunate to have two new crew members on board with us. Steve and Henry would help Elizabeth and I get across our sliver of the Atlantic with fewer problems and more sleep, as someone needs to be awake and in control of the boat at all times. There would be no anchoring at night in the 22,000 foot deep Atlantic, we would be sailing across using only the radar for our eyesight.

We broke our shifts into four different three-hour sections that repeated each am and pm. Elizabeth was going to take the 6-9 shifts, Henry the 9-12, Steve the 3-6 and I would take the 12-3 shifts. So with that, my day started at midnight and was not exactly what I had imagined it to be. While the stars had been out in full force earlier in the night, I awoke from my two-hour nap to a fog so thick that even San Francisco would be jealous. And it set the mood for the rest of the day.

Eventually the winds picked up enough to sail and strong enough that I had to put a reef in the Genoa (reducing sail size to prevent damage to the sails, mast or rigging).

At 02:30, as the waves and wind picked up, the boat started its nearly daily ritual of something breaking. The first discovery was that our port winch would only grind in one direction. Not a terrible problem yet, but if the other direction were to fail we would have no way to hoist our mainsail. A big issue when you don't have enough diesel fuel to motor the entire way to your destination.

But this was not the worst of it. Later in the day we were absolutely horrified to learn that hoisting the sail was not our problem, but that quite the opposite, the mainsail was stuck at the very top of the mast and would not come down! Not to sound dramatic, but this is one of the very worst things that can happen on a sailboat. You ALWAYS want to be able to bring your sails down as an approaching storm could easily kick up 30+ knot winds and snap your mast in half like a toothpick, blow your boat upside down and make you wish you had picked a different hobby (something like badminton).

As you can see in the attached picture, the very top car had become dislodged from the mast track and was jammed in place. Fortunate or not, the squall finally hit us and the rain helped lube the jam and the entire car became separated from the mast. While not good, this was decidedly better than having our mainsail stuck at the top and we were able to bring it down and perform some damage control. What we found was equally disturbing. We would more than likely have to divert to Bermuda as the eight fingers that hold the car (and thus the sail) onto the mast track had completely broken off - something we would not be able to fix at sea.

With a very heavy heart we informed the rest of the rally of our predicament and that we would not be joining them in Tortola. We would become the first boat to call it quits. Something very difficult to do under normal circumstances, but even more difficult to do when there was nothing you did wrong. Boats break, and ours decided to do it 150 miles off-shore with westerly winds that would prevent us from turning around.

Bermuda bound and with only one sail remaining, we went to sleep.