We went out for the start of the Moreton Bay Classic race today. The race starts at Manly and finishes in Scarborough 20 odd miles later and the return race is on the Sunday.
The breeze was up for the 11am start and was averaging 20 knots. We put the main up with a reef and kept the jib furled and had our smallest spinnaker tied on and ready to hoist.. With about 10 minutes to go before the start I decided to gybe over for the start line; bad move I should have chicken turned,
As soon as we started gybing I knew it was going to go wrong, we were both caught on the wrong side of the boat, over we went and she stayed down. With the help of the wind and wave action the hull tried to turn turtle and only the mast hitting the mud bottom stopped the hull from turning over completely; not good.
We had no chance of righting Charlene ourselves. Our friend Chucky did a nice swan dive from his own boat to swim over to help us (we had been floating beside our boat for about 10 minutes at this stage). Another boat came over and attached a line and attempted to turn us into the breeze to give Chucky and I a chance of getting onto the keel and helping her come up; nice try but no luck.
Out comes the Coast Guard, thanks guys, we were getting pretty tired. Chucky managed to get the main sail down by this stage while I'm hanging onto the keel; that helped but she still wouldn't come all the way up and she was know full of water and only the water tight (or so I thought) compartments were keeping her afloat. After this it was time to release the jib which I didn't want to do because as we did I realized it was the only thing keeping the mast standing but it had to be done.
So she finally comes up (full of water and sitting very low) without and mast standing because it has completely snapped at the hounds.
So after a big clean up I was thrown a line from the Coast Guard guys and towed back it. You may wonder what my crew had been doing all this time? When not holding onto a rope to stay with the boat she was already on the Coast Guard boat which she swam to.
So now its just a matter of putting in an insurance claim and hope for the best.
We require a new mast, there is no hope in hell we can repair the current one. Our VHF radio was submerged so is most likely dead and our jib was given a hard time and a bit of roughing up (new holes) so we may get a new one there also if we're lucky otherwise its a bin job. Either way it will be some months before she's back in the water. So while the mast is being sorted I will add a bit of lead to the keel bulb.
The breeze was up for the 11am start and was averaging 20 knots. We put the main up with a reef and kept the jib furled and had our smallest spinnaker tied on and ready to hoist.. With about 10 minutes to go before the start I decided to gybe over for the start line; bad move I should have chicken turned,
Almost pumped out, this was full up to the cut out in the frame pictured.
Back at the pontoon we had left an hour or so earlier.
We had no chance of righting Charlene ourselves. Our friend Chucky did a nice swan dive from his own boat to swim over to help us (we had been floating beside our boat for about 10 minutes at this stage). Another boat came over and attached a line and attempted to turn us into the breeze to give Chucky and I a chance of getting onto the keel and helping her come up; nice try but no luck.
Out comes the Coast Guard, thanks guys, we were getting pretty tired. Chucky managed to get the main sail down by this stage while I'm hanging onto the keel; that helped but she still wouldn't come all the way up and she was know full of water and only the water tight (or so I thought) compartments were keeping her afloat. After this it was time to release the jib which I didn't want to do because as we did I realized it was the only thing keeping the mast standing but it had to be done.
So she finally comes up (full of water and sitting very low) without and mast standing because it has completely snapped at the hounds.
So after a big clean up I was thrown a line from the Coast Guard guys and towed back it. You may wonder what my crew had been doing all this time? When not holding onto a rope to stay with the boat she was already on the Coast Guard boat which she swam to.
A sorry sight for our good girl, it's amazing how strong she is. There would have been literally a ton of water in her and she didn't make a noise. The pin in the mast step was bent and the pin in the engine mount was bent but nothing structural had an issue in the hull. The keel had myself , 70kg and my friend Chucky 100kg, standing on it at one stage and it didn't even flex at all.
So now its just a matter of putting in an insurance claim and hope for the best.
We require a new mast, there is no hope in hell we can repair the current one. Our VHF radio was submerged so is most likely dead and our jib was given a hard time and a bit of roughing up (new holes) so we may get a new one there also if we're lucky otherwise its a bin job. Either way it will be some months before she's back in the water. So while the mast is being sorted I will add a bit of lead to the keel bulb.
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