We took Pirate Girl, Patty’s Beneteau 323 out sailing today…. with 10 knot winds, 58 degree air and almost flat seas it was a chill but beautifull day to sail.
We motored out of the inlet and then proceded to pull the main out of the mast…. … well tried to pull it out… we got it about half way out and the leech started to wrap back around the furler the opposite direction inside the mast this jammed the sail in the mast half out half in….
not good…
Then while we were in the middle of this the engine which had been idleing overheated ..the temp alarm came on and we quickly turned the engine off.
not not good
while this was happening the winds were about 2 or 3 knots luckly … this gave us time to scratch our heads and work out the problem (of the sail)…. after about 5 minutes of fruitlessly working on it we gave Orrin a call and asked his advice… none of us have any experience with in mast furling….. and he does as his boat a beneteau 39 has it installed…. he was able to give us several suggestions on how to resolve it and why it probably happened.
- first was to loosen the main halyard to take tension off the sail.
- second was to ease the mainsheet so that the boom can rise and take tension off the leech
- then the pull the sail back in till the wrap was undone.
After taking the pressure off the main halyard and the main sheet the main sail responded to being rolled back into the mast where before it felt like it was lodged hard. In about 3/4 of a turn the wrap popped loose and we were able to then pull the sail all the way out. What a relief!!
Deploying the jib went smoothly and we were sailing. I have to say it is a smooth boat…. we set a course down the coast about 50 degrees from the wind.. with the steering wheel brake that is built in we could balance the boat and after engaging the brake she would hold her course for 5 to 10 minutes at the time.
Now that we were under way and had control again Patty and Breck went below to check on the engine.. On opening the engine compartment they discovered the entire oil pan/ sump area under the engine full of anti-freeze…. it looked like one of the radiator hoses had split a seam or burst… We did not have the right tools or materials to effect a repair. Not to mention that the engine was still hot and the hose is nearly inaccessable. At this point we just left it alone for a while thinking we could put some more water in the system and run it for a while before it overheated again. So Patty bailed all the coolent out of the bilge area and cleaned up before coming up to enjoy the rest of the sail.
We sail another few miles down the coast and then turned back torward the inlet. Again the boat handled beautifully on a broad reach heading back… A little more attention to steering was needed on this course.
Angela in Sea Haven (her O’day 27?) was sailing just behind us while all this was going on. It was nice to know that someone else was out there with us in case we needed help.
About 5 minutes from the jettys at the inlet Breck and Patty went back below to put water in the engine, and unfortuanatly found that it was pouring out almost as fast as it was going in.
Again NOT GOOD!!
At this point we went ahead and contacted Angela on Sea Haven took her up on the tow she had offered earlier in case we needed it.
At this point we sailed into the inlet with Sea Haven following, I pulled the anchor out of the anchor well and rigged it on the bow roller just in case. After that we furled the jib and then in one of the deeper and wider parts of the inlet eased the tension on the main halyard, eased the main sheet and pointing upwind pulled the main sail into the mast…. finally something went smooth as silk 🙂
About 30 seconds later Sea Haven pulled alongside and we passed the tow line we had rigged over and she took us under tow. It took about an hour and a half or a little more to get back to the marina… Angela pulled us at a steady 3 knots without problem.
Our plan was to have Angela pull us into the marina and then to crank the engine up only long enough to back into the slip. Again when it counted this went flawlessly.. As we pulled up even with the slip under tow Breck started pumping water into the engine using the shower hose, Patty started the engine and I retrieved the tow line from Sea Haven. Patty then did a perfect and very smooth job of backing into the slip on the first try… all in all it probably only took about 60 to 120 seconds with the engine on.
Talk about a enteresting day on the water…. but we don’t think any damage was done to the engine… we had turned it off imeadiatly when the engine temp alarm went off, and we only ran it for for a minute to dock afterward.. and during that minute Breck pumped water into the engine. ( there again was lots of anti-freeze to clean up) We learned a lot about the furling and unfurling of the main sail.. it definately is a tempremental creature and needs to be pandered to. 🙂
At this rate im going to gain a lot of experience of boating in adversarial conditions. Lately about half of the time when out on the water something goes wrong that needs to be fixed or worked around.. So far no damage to boats or threat to safety has occured…I pray that this is always true.
again the moral of the story is any day out on the water is a good day 🙂
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