Lake Superior and a Frayed Halyard Cover

 

I certainly did not expect, when I gave my crew the helm and went down for a quick nap, that my Genoa halyard was about to apple core and that we were about to see winds up to 34kts.  At that moment we were peacefully wing on wing without the pole with 6-8 knots behind us, just turning the corner of the St Mary’s River onto a heading that would bring us straight through Whitefish Bay and into Lake Superior. It was forecast to be the last of an unusual east wind.  Before I could fall asleep I heard the quickening flow of water past the hull. I peeked my head up and advised Mark on using the wind vane function on the autopilot, rather than having it steer to a compass course, in order to prevent the Genoa from collapsing and filling again.  Shortly thereafter he called down that he thought the Genoa was coming down. As I’m quickly getting my gear on, muttering about how Genoas do not usually just come down, he calls down again, more anxiety in his voice this time, saying the Genoa was tearing. 

And of course it was 11pm with no moon. 

Through the beam of a flashlight I could see an 8’ tear running vertically along the luff, just 3” aft of the bolt rope. My first reaction was to furl the sail. But that did not go right and a bunch of sail was loosely wrapped around the drum, something I attributed to the tear causing the furl to start unevenly. Temporarily things seemed in control until a big flap of the leech began to flog loudly. I spun the fuller a few more times which provided a few minutes relief, but again a flap opened up. I tried wrapping a sail tie around it, but the flap kept escaping. At one point I strapped myself to the furled sail, stood on the bow pulpit and tied a sail tie as high as I could get it.  

Whatever we did, a flap persisted and flogged violently. I did not have a sense for what was going on. As much as I would try to tighten things up, they kept coming loose. My sail ties and Genoa sheets were falling and pretty soon there was a rat’s nest of Genoa sheets and sail ties at the base of the fuller, even under the drum.  

The violent flogging of the sail led to violent shaking of the forestay against the toggle at the base. My strength was insignificant in comparison to the forces involved. I was concerned we could break something and the rig would topple. 

To drop the sail we would need to unroll it, temporarily unleashing a lot more chaos, before it could be muscled to the deck. I considered a situation a couple years ago on the double handed return leg of the Bermuda 1-2 when one of the nearby competitors was hit in the eye with flogging ropes that had balled together. It really is all fun and games until someone loses an eye. I chose to take my chance of losing the rig over increasing the risk one of us could get hurt.  

In the midst of this a “Laker,” one of the 750’ boats that transit the Great Lakes, was coming right at us and we asked him to divert so we could hold our course as “we’re having a bit of a shit show over here.” He consented but also asked what the hell we were doing out here.  Pretty soon I was being hailed by the Coast Guard, asking if we needed assistance. I just said “Not right now. Thank you.”  

We settled on trying to tuck behind Whitefish Point, in hopes the lee of the land would offer some protection from the East winds that were consistently 25-30kts. We did not have local knowledge about how close we could get to the shore but I had specifically been warned of huge underwater boulders on Lake Huron so we stayed in 40’. Our chart plotter was misbehaving and would not zoom in for details of the shallows. Whether our strategy paid off or if the wind just passed, eventually we began to see teens and when we saw 14 we decided to unroll and drop. That was when I first looked at the halyard. 

The halyard exits the mast a little above eye level and then goes through a rope clutch. Just below the rope clutch the cover was all bunched up. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at until I noticed that above the clutch, on its way into the mast, the halyard was reduced to bright red  Dyneema core. The clutch has apple-cored the halyard, completely severing the cover, and the core was working its way out. The core had virtually no tension on it. The sail was only staying up by virtue of it being furled and it was gradually telescoping back into itself, causing the free edge to be slack. The winds found the slack leech and it flogged  

The halyard is 8mm covered Dyneema. These ropes have all their strength in the core, so the core was strong enough to hold it, but the core is slippery and requires the cover be cleated or tied. This halyard had been in use for 15,000 miles including two roundtrips to the Caribbean, three roundtrip Bermuda races and a year of living aboard. The clutch would have locked onto the same small section of cover hundreds of times. I had flipped the halyard because of chafe from the upper mast sheave and it had not started to chafe there again since I flipped it.  Admittedly I had not inspected the section into which the clutch sunk its teeth. 

In preparation to drop the sail we had to unwrap by hand many turns of the Genoa sheets.  These seemed to have fallen down below the fuller drum. I had to cut one of the Genoa sheets because of a jam, but it turns out I only cut 5’ off the end. Several of the sail ties I had tried to tie around the forestay and contain the flogging also ended up down there, but they are hard to unknot and now I am short sail ties because I had to cut so many.  

We had made the decision to drop once the wind hit 14 and it was down to 10 by the time we were actually ready. Once down we dragged it through the companionway and into the v-berth but, on the good side, it wasn’t drenched with salt water.  

At first we were undecided what had failed first, the halyard or the sail. By the time I looked at the halyard we had been flogging for quite a while. Could the violent flogging have jerked on the halyard enough to tear the cover? Possibly, but there’s some evidence my crew member’s initial observation was correct and the halyard failed first. It would explain the bunch of fabric around the base of the fuller which I initially blamed on furling a torn sail. And it would explain the persistent unfurling. The leech spirals up the forestay like the stripes on a candy cane. If you were to compress that candy cane from the top, but the white stripe stayed the same length, the stripe would bulge out. As the sail drops, the head to foot distance is compressed but the leech, analogous to the stripe of the candy cane remains the same length. That explains why it kept coming unwrapped beyond my reach and why putting more turns on the  fuller temporarily solved it.  

I totally missed it that the halyard was failing. In my haste to save the sail by quickly furling it, I did not fully assess the situation and did not take in all the information given to me.  

At some point here the boat had become more of a survival platform than a pleasure craft. The action of clipping heightens the senses. You only have one hand to work with because the other one is holding on. Motions are deliberate and thought out. Comfort is still important, but now amounts to maintaining a comfortable motion of the boat and staying warm.  

There are two levels of intelligence here. The first could be thought of as more cognitive. How do we solve the problem. There are always multiple cognitive challenges going on at once on a boat. You are not going to get all of them right.  

But once you get yourself into a situation like this planning can be more important than doing and that brings us to a more emotional level of thinking. It involves judgement and seeing the big picture. Five miles into Lake Superior at night is the wilderness and you do not want to 

make things worse. Sometimes decisions slow down. And there is no room for panic. I was very deliberate with my crew and simply told him “We are not going to panic.”  

My Genoa was already fragile after 15,000 miles and living aboard for a year. It could not take forces out of line with how it was designed and would tear if I tried to sail with it roller furled. It was made of a material similar to Mylar, with a nylon taffeta, a very thin layer of regular sail material on either side to add durability. The high-tech fibers cannot withstand flogging and what we put it through basically destroyed it from the inside.  

We sailed the rest of the way to Duluth with a Solent sail. Performance with that sail is disappointing below 20kts. We took the passage through the Keweenaw Peninsula and stopped at Houghton where we spread out the sail and paid our respects.  

I came into Superior a bit humbled with my tail tucked between my legs. I had dubbed this trip Gryphon’s Grand Tour and had t-shirts made for others who came along. In five stages I had brought the boat from the Caribbean to Lake Superior on her own bottom. While the last leg initially felt like a train wreck, we got through it without injury. My crew and I assured each other that we are still friends. And besides, more people want to hear about the Erie Canal than about my slap-down by Lake Superior. 

I have inspected the halyard since then.  I do not see any obvious wear on either side of the fray.  Both sides of the frayed cover look the same with an inch worth of loose threads all the way around.  There is no damage to the core.  There is no worn spot where the halyard went over the mast top sheave as there had been before I flipped it.  I have yet to confirm that all my 18 clutches are Antal 10 series and not Antal 12 Series V-Grip Clutches.

Another wildcard in this situation is that my mast head sheave for the jib halyard has ovaled.  There is a spot that catches on each revolution.  I found this on routine inspection.  It probably contributed to the chafe that forced me to flip the halyard.  I reduced but did not eliminate the catching by going up the mast and spraying lubricant in there, but I was not able to get it replaced in the Caribbean while the mast was up.  I am not sure if resistance at that point could have allowed the clutch to eat away more at the cover.  Maybe it is not related.

There also may have been a component of sailing to a schedule here.  We had taken a morning flight up to the boat, had completed our list of things, and I was eager to get off the dock and catch a rare east wind to get us west across Lake Superior before a little ball of fire on the forecast roared thru.  But our groceries had not been delivered, we had to hoof it over a mile to the grocery store where we shopped with a dock cart, and I was exhausted.  We left the dock at 7p, just as it was getting dark.  We hit the lock without the boat hooks in hand and were a bit disorganized.  When we got into open water and we set up wing on wing in light air I went to lay down.  But then when I heard the water rushing past the hull I did not come up.  I left a new crew member on deck who now feels responsible for what happened.  

[Joe Cooper at Quantum sails encourages those he works with to write up our failures, so this was written as an assignment]

Video of Monitor wind vane at work

This video does not capture the strength of the storm.  It was 30+ wind against current in the Gulf Stream. I was wedged into a corner of the cockpit while experiencing strong acceleration forces in many directions.  The wind vane is happy as can be.

Repower

The process began with news that my motor required "extensive work" due to corrosion.  Then was told they needed to pull the motor and that I needed to consider a repower which I did not want to hear.  Then I came up with idea that I could just find a rebuilt 3JH2 and swap it in.  Found one at Schooner Bay in Bayfield.  Then leaned that crew Dallas knows them "intimately." Just before I was going to give them a deposit their shop burned down.  MYC suggested we proceed with plan to clean mine up but that was going to be 8k and "probably more" at which point I would still have a 30 year old engine with 4400hrs.  Then started conversations with Beta.  Beta 30 worked well in another Justine and they had one left so bought that day.

First singlehanded offshore win

Gryphon entred the 2021 Maine rocks Race. The course was shortened from 112nm to 60nm when race organizers considered the forecast of light winds to start followed by a long beat home. 

It seemed like this 60nm course was going to take forever when light and variable winds at the start gave way to nothing, but the beauty of the sailing grounds was just compensation.  As I struggled to maintain apparent wind and keep this 16000-pound boat moving, a misty fog settled in, obscuring the rocky, pine-studded islands until it momentarily lifted, as if by magic, revealing silhouettes of my competitors scattered in all directions.  As it settled in again and I didn’t realize how limited my vision was until a Saber 34 suddenly appeared a couple hundred yards away.  While I could have crossed their bow I opted to go with them, but didn’t complete my tack and it must of took 30 mins to regain momentum.  

After rounding Metinicus Rock the wind ominously shifted 180 degrees and filled in.  I was hard on the wind for the next mark at Three Fathoms Ledge with two boats ahead of me, but as we were being lifted they both tacked too early, providing me an opportunity.  The final leg was under a nearly full moon, again upwind on a single tack, with the winds now 19-23, gusting to 27.  The Saber 32 I had just passed, with a lower PHRF rating, was a quarter mile to leeward.  I was overpowered with 2 reefs in the main and a full genoa, but knew if I partially rolled the genny I would lose upwind performance and setting the Solent was beyond my energy level 14 hours into this race.  I opted for a 3rd reef, but something got hung up and, being steered by a windvane which depends on balanced sails, I was quickly turned downwind and watching the Saber steam ahead.  Instead of going up to figure out the reef issues I just got back on track, flattened the second reef and tightened the back stay.  I rejuvenated myself with coffee and the rest of the bag of Pepperidge Farms cookies and resolved to hand steer the 15nm left.  I was able to catch the Saber and stay above Owl’s Head without tacking while the Saber had to tack.  The finish line was at the Rockland Breakwater Light which I passed doing 8kts, screaming into an unfamiliar harbor at night under full sail, spotlight in hand.  I won my first singlehanded and had faster corrected time than all the double-handed and crewed boats. 

There are a few things which led me to do well in this race. Upwind I had good success with momentarily bearing off to gain speed which I was then able to hold when I came back up.  Paul Exner was the first to teach this technique to me. It is as if a flow gets started which is then able to persist as I head back up. Chuck Paine explains that when wind flows over a sail something magical happens. He also reminds me that with better flow over my keel it becomes a more effective foil. Admittedly I would lose this groove, but while I was in it the boat felt great and I knew I was fast. 

The second factor is that I took weight off the boat, especially the stern and aft lockers, so the boat sat flat. Maine Yacht Center came down to the dock with a golf cart to collect heavy gear from a year living aboard. Rockland Yacht Club let me leave my primary anchor and 110# of chain tied to a mooring. I emptied the 60 gallon water tank under the v-berth. Sailing the boat light was a pleasure. Nate Lee, who did very well in another Justine, told me to the importance of trim and loading during our layover in Bermuda between Bermuda 1-2 races. Chuck Paine agreed with the importance of trim. 

Near perfect trim

Beautiful picture, but all I see is the stern sitting low

The reason I know all these opinions of Chuck Paine, the naval architect who designed my boat 40 years ago, is because the day after the race I spent the day sailing with him. I got his email from another Justine owner, invited him to come sailing and he said yes. We spent 7 hours together. He explained how he designed a fair hull, both before and after computers. We looked at sheeting angles for my Solent sail and solved a problem that has vexed me since I’ve owned that sail. We could have done with more wind, but it was a great day, sailing out of Rockland and dropping him off at Tenants Harbor. He made three suggestions to improve my speed. 1-move the batteries forward to better distribute weight, consistent with what I’ve started. 2-keep the bottom clean, which I had done a couple weeks before. 3-rake the mast vertical. Brian Harris at the Maine Yacht Center is going to help me look into these options. 

Two days after the race, even emerging a bit during the day sailing with Chuck Paine, I began to experience severe lower abdominal pain. After going through horror scenarios about how I could be rescued at sea, I settled on the idea that this was a hernia. Over the past week I have been questioning my self-diagnosiss and think now I may have just strained a lot of muscles. It was a strenuous event. My boat was a pitching and heaving jungle gym and I’d been climbing all over it for most of the night. Even in light airs I had been active trying to keep the boat always moving, something my 1-2 crew Dallas emphasized. I may have just overdone it physically and I am currently back to a light regimen of rowing machine and stretching. 

I am working to perfect my use of the windvane rather than an electrically-powered autopilot. I prefer the sensation of the windvane. I was able to deploy it quickly during the hours of hand steering when I needed a short break. It was not helpful in the light wind. I am still experiencing a slight amount of chafe where the control lines are routed through the coaming. Last time a line chafed the bits of fluff got into the Protexit block I am using in the coaming and jammed it up solid. 

Through this process of racing I continue to run into knowledgable people that improve my sailing or my set up. Recently these people have included Chuck Paine Dallas Johnson, crew for the 1-2 who not only taught me to keep the boat moving in light air but also to avoid overpowering it in heavy air Ray Renaud, safety inspector for 1-2, pointed out dissimiliar metal rxn at mast base Gust Stringos suggested two sheets to the Solent Nate Lee told me of his efforts to get the trim right on Yankee Girl and a lot of other characters

Bermuda 1-2 Zoom talk to Wayzata Yacht Club

 Here is the link to a Zoom talk I gave on the Bermuda 1-2.

Click Here

Leif's next block and tackle videos

 In these two videos Leif explains a difficult concept.  If Ruby hangs from a rope that is passed around a pulley and comes back to herself, she only has to pull with a force of half her weight.  But if Leif pulls the same rope, he has to pull with a force equal to her whole weight

Returning home

We’ve been back about 7 weeks now.  The boat is on the hard in Deltaville, Virginia, about 30 miles up from the Bay Tunnel.  I’m not sure when I will make it back out to the boat.  I have been sailing the J/27 like hell, have made some good rig-tune adjustments and am on a steep learning curve racing with Doug Mann as my crew.  

I had thought I would make it back to the boat late-summer or fall.  Now that looks unlikely due to the poor control of the virus pandemic.  It’s not for sale.  I would like to have her near Newport by next spring to have her ready for the Bermuda 1-2 that June.  We all like Maine so I imagine trying to get the boat up there after the race.  Maybe we can fit in an early-spring family trip up the Chesapeake to poke around there before heading back up north.  

I think we all remember the boat trip fondly.  Each of us have expressed good stories reminiscent of the trip.  Sometimes we talk about where we are going next with the boat.  Kate expects short family trips will be a cinch after doing it for a year.  Hopefully we can still find extended times, like over a month, to get away again.  

I’m lucky the family feels that way because our trip home was not easy.  We had waited for a good weather window, always ready to go for three weeks.  I was using several internet resources including Predict Wind, Windy and the Ocean Prediction Center.  I had frequent input from Chris Parker because we had purchased 10 passage credits that are used to get custom weather forecasts.  I conferred often with fellow cruisers and felt like there were some very knowledgeable people among them.  We discussed passage plans on the phone for hours, at many happy hours and through long emails.  A group of us met a couple times at the Dinghy Dock restaurant but the second time too many people came and the owner broke it up because we were going to get him in trouble.  I was very apologetic because Francois was always helpful.  

When we did leave we thought it was the best weather window we had seen and was likely the best we were going to see.  The trades winds were settling in so the first half of the trip would likely have brink winds out of the east, ideal as we sailed northwest.  It was Mother’s Day, May 10, and Kate had been saying she wanted to go sailing for Mother’s Day, which was actually a joke, but it was also recognition that we were not letting an arbitrary day get in the way of us choosing the best day to go.  

It would be the first offshore passage for Kate and the kids.  We debated going along the Bahamas versus going direct.  The Bahamas was letting boats anchor for a night, but you could not go to shore or have anyone on your boat.  Supplies could be dropped off on the beach for you to retrieve by dinghy. This offer for a  one-day rest wouldn’t be enough to get good rest and would disrupt the offshore rhythm so we were going to make directly for the Chesapeake.  We did consider Kate and the kids flying home and I’d sail again single-handed, but at this point we had good internet and we were hearing the horror stories about people on cruise ships who were put on flights home.  One day we were talking about the option around the kids and there was a chorus of “No, we don’t want to fly, we want to sail!” That made me proud  Everyone was positive about the passage.  We had spent a lot of time all getting the boat ready together.  Leif and Ruby had to figure out what they wanted available to themselves on route and what was getting packed deeper.  Kate moved everything around.  And I was constantly prioritizing my projects.  When we left we were topped up with water, fuel and food and emotionally we were all ready to go.  

The speed at which sailboats cross oceans is often expressed in nautical miles per day.  Its important to go fast because you know your weather for the first 4 days, but beyond that the longer you spend out there the greater likelihood you will see storm development.  And measuring in miles per day keeps you honest about how fast you’re keeping the boat going all the time, not just when you feel like it.  We made 170nm on our first day and based on the hull speed science we should not be able to make more than 175.  I takes a lot of work to keep the boat moving at that rate.  We may have had some current helping us.  

On day 4 we got news that a Tropical Storm was on a course intersecting ours.  We’d been told before we left that there was a 10% chance of storm formation before we left but also that there would continue to be a 10% chance if we waited.  Our path was northwest and it was tracking northeast.  It was Wednesday and we were given coordinates or a waypoint we had to reach by Sunday noon to cross in front of it.  We kept trying to go fast.  Then that night we get an email that we should get to our waypoint by Saturday night.  Zipporah, who was ahead of us in a faster boat, actually called on the sat phone to “make sure you are seeing this.”  After a few emails back and forth he tells us he’s turning around to keep things “within my control.” I kept sailing though  I was restless with my decision and couldn’t sleep.  

The morning brings day 5 and I’m tired from not sleeping.  But for my plan to work I need to keep the boat moving. I’m working hard while constantly second-guessing myself.  Thankfully I got an email that I need to be at the waypoint by Saturday noon or be prepared to face 50knot winds and 20’ seas.  That was enough to switch the decision and I soon had a sense of relief.  What’s sobering is that I had been willing to leave myself such limited room for error in the face of a named storm.  I needed to have safe options in case the storm deviated from its predicted track or it intensified.  What if something broke on the boat or the wind died? If the storm was able to cut me off it could trap me between it and the Gulf Stream with no place to go except into the Stream with wind-against-current or into the storm.  As Zipporah had pointed out in one of the late-night emails, turning around was a means to keep things within my control.

I had experienced 10 nerve-wrecked hours between the call from Doug and turning around.  But now we were going fast in the wrong direction so we hove to overnight.  That is a maneuver in which the boat is made to drift slowly sideways by fixing the sails so they oppose each other.  With the rudder locked in just the right position the boat can balance like this unattended.  Some experienced sailors consider heaving to an important storm-survival technique, though we were principally using it to slow down.  While we were still going away from the Chesapeake, at least we were going slowly.  We were all able to sleep and I had a hard time believing the wind meter which said the wind had peaked at 50.9kts that night and we rode it out peacefully.

At about this point in the trip, seasickness begins to subside.  Puking was done right into the cockpit.  I did not want anyone leaning over the edge.  Paper towels full of puke were then tossed overboard and then I’d rinse with water scooped out of the ocean with the cut-off top half of a laundry detergent bottle.  As the only well person I was on call for what ever my ill crew needed.  Kate would try to get water into the kids.  If anyone felt like they could keep down even something as small as a saltine I would get it for them.  I came to the point that I could recognize who was puking by just the sound.  Leif would be fine one minute, then the next he would silently lean over and puke at his feet.  Ruby would gradually withdraw, becoming quiet and listless and didn’t puke often, but when she did it was a gusher and I wondered how her body could hold that much.  Kate did OK except if she had to go downstairs, like to use the head.  She would coming scrambling up the company and let out painful wrenching sounds as she puked.  The only time I seem to get sick is at rolly anchorages after too much alcohol.  It hasn’t happened at sea, yet.  

Our course over the next three days traces a U in the ocean — 120 miles south, 180 miles west, then north again.  We settled into a good rhythm.  People started eating again, and even pooping.  Leif felt well enough to put out a fishing line.  We started allowing two movies per day.  Part of our pre-passage preparations had included saving 18 or so movies.  First Ruby was able to watch a movie downstairs, then eventually Leif was able to join.  Pretty soon Ruby was playing with dolls and the kids were making forts.  Kate would give me directions how to bake bread and could even participate.  Kate started to predict our arrival and started making plans with Ann, her sister in Maryland about what day they would meet up with us.  I kept saying that was not wise, we were at sea until we weren’t and we needed to focus on our situation, but she said it helped to plan.

Sure enough our next weather advice was that we did not have a viable option to cross the Gulf Stream.  Our projected arrival time at the east side of the Stream was going to coincide with east winds that would make the conditions inhospitable.  The Gulf Stream flows toward the east and when winds are out of the east they kick up large, steep waves.  We were advised to head for Charleston, South Carolina.  Logistically this was going to be a pain. We had a puppy waiting for us in Maryland.  

When we first told Ruby about the trip, she said she wasn’t going to go.  She would miss her friends and her mom and I would be terrible teachers and she’d be stupid.  I promised her a puppy when we got back and she said she’d go.  She later asked if she could change the deal to be a pony, but I said a deal’s a deal and that seemed to make sense to her.  During the trip we would talk about what type of dog and the kids pinned me down on how soon, after we got back, would my promise be fulfilled.  Then a hungry and tired looking dog showed up at Ann’s house out in the woods.  The dog’s teats were hanging down, suggesting it was nursing pups.  After some food and water they put the dog on a leash and it led them to her den where she had three 2-day old puppies.  We were adopting the one that had been named Charlie.

On day 10 of what was supposed to be a 9-day passage we began heading west toward Charleston.  It was a good thing that I continued to check the weather because two days later there was a report that the low pressure system which had stirred up the Gulf Stream was lifting and heading out to sea.  Our meteorologist gave us the green light to head north where we could jump into the Gulf Stream and ride it up and around Cape Hatteras.  

We would have just enough time to make it around Hatteras and exit the Stream before another storm was expected. Doug, who at this point was west of the Stream closer to the shore, could not make it back out quickly enough and missed the window we had found.  

We pulled into Deltaville 14 days and two hours after we left Culebra.  Ann and the two youngest of her five kids were at the dock.  I was going to stay at the boat and get a start on cleaning things up, but somehow got some sense knocked in me and jumped in the car, bound for a house with a shower and a real bed.  

Sixteen days later I was back at work.  My clinic had found someone to fill in for me and I slid back into my old job.  In the interim we packed up the boat, finally got her clean enough to live aboard and then tucked her away into storage.  We visited with family, drove back to Minnesota in the car they lent us and started to move back into our house. It helped to get right back to work because we were well into our home equity loan, meant to be for emergency use only.  But going back right away also jolted me out of my focused boat lifestyle to one with constant distractions pulling at my attention.  It was good to see friends again.  The renters had taken good care of the house and our two cats.  One irony is that we had hesitated to go on the trip because things were good in our lives and we did not want to change things.  Then we come back to the Coronavirus and everything has changed anyway.