SYSCO Spring Series, Thursday, May 27, 2021

This race was the first race I intentionally retired from.   We had an equipment failure, before that, the boom lightly taped my on my check bone when I was trying to adjust the main sheet.  The tap was not bad, but it popped the right lense out of my brand new as of Monday glasses.  Of course, being on a boat and on the Columbia, the lense plopped right into the river.

The race course was "X", Start-1-5-1-3-finish.  We had planned on a port start near the committee boat.  We ended up with a port start at the middle of the line.  We had not rolled the jib out entirely and had put in Cunningham ties to de-power the main sail.  The boat pointed much higher than with the sails fully out in the wind of 10-12 knots.  We managed to make quite a distance on the lead boats, because they pointed lower and tacked away from the mark.    We were about to go to starboard tack and lee bow Blew Streak when it happened.  The padeye that secures the main sheet to the boom parted from the boom.  This made the main sail flop uselessly in the wind.  Crew managed to secure the boom by connecting the main sheet to the padeye at the end of the boom.  This padeye is used in conjunction with the spare main halyard as a topping lift to support the boom when not sailing.  We notified the committee boat that we were retiring due to equipment failure.

Good news about the failure.  I procured threaded inserts that will fix the problem and use the existing padeye, too.  I even have the proper tap to thread the holes.  Total cost so far is $12.37 + $6.98 for locktite.  Not bad, so far.  I threaded the holes and inserted the inserts.  Fingers crossed it holds for another 43 years.

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