[Rhodes22-list] Dismasted!

[Steven Alm]

Folks, here's the story:  This happened at the end of our 5-day trip down
the Mississippi River.  We had a very nice voyage and I'll post some pix
later but I know you all want me to get to the gory details first.  We were
at the Winona Yacht Club on our last night.  All was good.  The next morning
we planned to pull the boat out and head for home.  We decided to pull the
boat out with the mast up and pack it down out in the parking lot.  When I
got a few yards from the top of the ramp I snagged an overhead wire and tore
the mast off.  The wire was very high and must have caught the top foot or
so of the mast.

First, it could have been much, much worse.  Overhead lines and masts can
and have lead to serious injury or death.  This time nobody got hurt!  The
wire didn't electrocute me nor did it break and sizzle and zap somebody.
I'm thankful for that and feel I got a little lucky all things considered.

Now friends, this accident was my fault.  I'm the one who drove into the
wire and as we all know, it's always the captain's fault and there are no
excuses but...  When I booked the slip, the first thing I said was it's a
sailboat and we're about 30 feet tall and I asked if there were any overhead
wires or bridges or any other height restrictions and the owner of the
marina said absolutely not and he, himself has a sailboat and there would be
no problem.  Hearing that, the whole issue was completely off my mind.
Further, he, Dennis the owner was standing right there watching me load the
boat on to the trailer offering his help and watched me pull up the ramp.
Don't you think he could have said something?  It's his frickin' marina and
he knows the wire's there.  He stood there silent and watched the whole
thing go down.  I'm not blaming him for the accident but I gotta say that I
think he's some kind of dummy for letting this happen in his yard.

Damage report:  The mast tabernacle broke away from the cabin roof.  This is
what it's supposed to do.  Just three hefty wood screws hold it on and if it
were through-bolted it would have torn off a nice big chunk of the
roof--which it did not.  The bow stay broke about a foot up from the chain
plate.  The forward lower shroud chain plate on the starboard side pulled
completely out.  The stern rail has a big bend in it where the mast hit it.
The jib furling tube has a little bend toward the top and a small tear in
the sail.  Wires to the radio antenna and the steaming light tore apart.
But there was no significant structural damage to the boat itself.  The mast
does not seem to be bent after hitting the stern rail and then falling to
the ground.

With the help of some friendly and sympathetic bystanders I stripped
everything down and loaded it all back up on the boat while my poor wife
stood in the parking lot horrified and sobbing.  I drove directly to a boat
yard back home and dropped it off there.  I'm fairly handy at fixing stuff
but I'm going to let the pros handle this.  I finally got a call from Tim,
the boat fixer and things don't seem to be all that bad and I feel a little
less shitty.  The worst part is the stern rail.  It's not yet known if it
can be straightened or a new section of it replaced or if I have to get a
whole new one.  But the good news is that part can wait until sailing season
is over.  The rest can be fixed in what he thought would be about a week.
If I wanted, I could even just take the stern rail off and sail without it.
Like Tim said, there are dozens of J22 stern rails laying around that were
taken off and never put back on.  Or we could just sail with it bent until
we decide what to do.  I have insurance with State Farm but I don't have an
estimate from Tim yet so I haven't contacted them yet to make a claim.

I did not take any pictures of the damage.  I should have but I was too
shaken by the whole thing that I didn't think about that.  I had to just
drop off the boat and head out of town for my gig this week in the Lake of
the Ozarks.  I won't be home until next Thursday and by then it might be
fixed.  Except the stern rail.

Slim



On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 8:53 AM, Hank <hnw555 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nope, he hasn't told us yet.
>
> Slim, we're all in great suspense!  Hopefully no one was hurt in the
> dismasting.
>
> Hank
>
>
> On 7/23/08, elle <watermusic38 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > but now my boat's in for repairs for a few weeks.
> > > I'll let you know when we're back in the saddle.
> > >
> > > Slim
> >
> >
> >
> > Did I miss the details???
> >
> > elle
> >
> >
> >
> >
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