The luck of the thirteenth sail of the year

Torn tiller. Interestingly, when the winds rose, the tiller didn't break at the connection to the tiller extension, where holes had been drilled that might have weakened it. Instead, the tiller first broke at the front end several inches in front of the tiller extension connection. Then, several minutes later, the tiller broke near the rudder stock. Controlling the boat without a tiller in the whitecaps was an interesting exercise, with crew weight and sail steering inadequate in tight quarters. But, we were able to sail the boat to the courtesy dock and make a precision landing in spite of conditions. The boat the tiller came from had been exposed to a fire; possibly exposure to the heat of the fire, combined with regular stresses from using the tiller, combined to weaken the laminated surfaces of the wood strips that the tiller comprised.

Superstitious sailors might be interested to know that although sailing on Friday the 13th proved to be no problem, Monday's sail was my 13th sail of the year. The Saturday sail also had an interesting conclusion; as Carol Anne and her crew returned to the dock, they faced a jammed halyard and a mainsail that refused to come down the mast.

Vise pliers clamped to the rudder stock.

Kachina's big owie

Kachina back on land the evening after receiving her big hit. During Saturday's third race, a port-tack boat t-boned Kachina, which was the stand-on starboard tack boat. The port-tack skipper and crew were relatively new to the boat and perhaps didn't keep an adequate lookout or lacked coordination to turn the boat quickly. The sound of crunching fiberglass could be heard 400 feet away in spite of the noise of wind and waves in the brisk 14-knot conditions.

we were up the course when the incident happened and responded to a radio request to provide assistance by ferrying the boat owner/master boat wrangler from the committee boat to the marina. The crew of Kachina heeled the boat over and duct-taped the bottom of the hole to prevent the boat from taking on water and sinking before motoring back to the boat ramp, where the boat owner quickly prepared the trailer for retrieving Kachina.

Skippers and crews of port-tack or other give-way/burdened/no rights boats need to be extremely mindful of their position on the race course at all time and should take early, decisive action to avoid a collision and the attendant risk of liability for damage, sinking, injury, or other grave consequences. It's also important for skippers and crews to be very aware of how their boats perform under different conditions.