We had an accidental jibe…
We had an accidental jibe while tied to the dock! Yes boys and girls, it is possible! And very fortunately the bump on Rebecca’s head is a small one!
Yesterday was rig-the-boat day and we started it off by picking up our sails, battens and boom from our old gym where we had them stored for the winter. Unlike our lifelines which came out of storage in much worse shape than they went in, the sails and boom were perfect. There is a huge number of things to do to rig the boat. We removed every block, line and shackle from the boat last fall. Fortunately we had the foresight to take a bazillion photos of the removal process or there is no way in the world we would have gotten the boat back to its starting condition.
At one point after attaching the boom, I was down below and I heard a fairly loud bang, or was it boom? I quickly came back up to see Rebecca with a not-so-happy look on her face and the boom off to the side. Because we are docked stern to the wind, the boom was caught by a gust and flew off to one side. Unfortunately the top of Rebecca’s head was in the way. Before we start getting panicked emails from Mom and Dad telling Rebecca that she needs a cat-scan, she is fine. It only nicked her, and she has a hard head cultivated from years of boxing. One “accidental jibe” is enough though so I quickly rigged a makeshift preventer with some old climbing rope that I had on board. After all, my head is not nearly as hard as hers! 🙂
The boat was ultimately put all back together with a minimum of comedy. Rebecca is happy because she will finally get her wish to climb the mast! Yes, the mast was stepped with one of the halyards tangled around the lazy jacks above the spreader and we can’t see any way to fix it without going aloft. We would have actually done it today but the wind had picked up to the point where we thought that waiting for a calmer day would be prudent.
All in all though is was a productive day. The boat is in sailing condition with sails rigged and anchors back on the rollers. We even had the time to put the water system back online. We ran two full tanks of water through the system to flush out all of the pink antifreeze. There is now a full tank of water which we assume should be safe to drink. We hope it is anyway!
Oooooo, I am glad Rebecca is ok! Yes, even a makeshift preventer is a good preventer. On our PDQ, all we ever had for downwind runs was a rope tied off to one side or the other, but it did the trick. Good to see the boat back in the water — yay!
Funny thing is that just prior to this happening I looked at the boom to see if it would move. Because there were no sails up and it was resting right on the bimini I thought it would be fine. Once again I was wrong.
Climbing the mast is fun! It is at least twice as far looking down from the top, as it is looking up at the masthead from the deck. You would swear that it would be difficult to drop something in such a way that it would hit the boat. If this is your first trip up there, take a camera!
bob
Definitely a camera, on a lanyard. 🙂
I’ve never really felt a preventer was needed, on this or my Stiletto. With a full-length traveller, if both ends of the line are kept cleated, that should do the trick.
I do find it handy to have a length of line from the boom end to a cleat on deck to reduce boom swing when motoring. It gives 3 points of suport to the boom (topping lift, mainsheet, and this line at an angle). The line has a loop on one end, a biner on the boom end, and I simply clip the loop up when sailing. It is not removed.
That’s a good idea!
Glad Rebecca’s OK!
We also use a preventer most of the time when sailing downwind. Our traveler, which we use a lot while sailing, would not prevent an accidental jibe in those conditions. We have a burly snapshackle that we can clip to the two toerail padeyes we have about 45 degrees off each bow. We run the line from the boom forward to that snapshackle, back to blocks on the stern we already have for our spinnaker guys and forward again a few feet to a set of cockpit combing cleats.
I think the traveler will do on a PDQ 32, though. Because the boat uses beach cat rigging instead of a backstay, you can’t ease the main too far unless you want to stretch the leach and risk breaking battens. Just touching the shrouds is as far as you should go. You will most likely be reaching downwind, not running. Thus, the main sheet is never out very far at all. The PDQ 32 and the Stiletto are the same in this manner.
The PDQ 36 has a backstay and is different.
Also notice the PDQ 32 has no vang; it would be pointless. A vang only serves a propose if…
* The traveler is too short. It isn’t.
* The boat has a bendy mast (not) and “vang sheeting” can be used in gusty conditions. This is common on skiffs and sport boats but not cats in general.
Another reason to use an asymmetrical spinnaker – you can’t physically ease the main far enough to make use of it. Another way cats – some of them – are different.
I am looking forward to trying out our spinnaker this spring.
Thanks Livia!
what did you guys decide to name the boat
We “think” that we can still use Katana and are going to list that as our first choice (no sense pissing of Poseidon if we don’t have to). The registration docs make you select 3 names and we have some other choices (about 20 of them actually). Hopefully number 1 is approved though.
This story goes to show that being married to a “hard headed” woman sometimes has its benefits….and thank goodness for that …. !
🙂
I guess you’ll have to wear a hardhat on deck. Hard hat and bikini – mmmm
I’ll take a pic of that.