It started, as most offshore disasters do, with something small—a $200 staysail sheet. Nothing dramatic. Just a clean, sharp snap in the middle of the Pacific. One second, we were rolling along comfortably, the next we were in full chaos; the staysail flogging itself to death, me clambering up the companionway in one motion, snatching the winch handle from its pocket, and furling the sail before it ripped itself apart.
We were in one of those extended confluence zones that had been dogging us for sixteen hours, pissing rain, blowing like stink, and making the watchstanders miserable. At night, in conditions like this, we usually don’t send people forward unless it’s an emergency, and this didn’t quite qualify. Our only real option was a heavily reefed genoa. Usually, that’s a terrible idea; reefing a jib past 30 percent loads up the head and tack where there’s no reinforcement, stretching the sail prematurely. You want to kill a jib? Start using it like a staysail.
But we didn’t have a choice. So we rolled out a piece of the big 140% genoa. Aside from being bad for the sail, loading the boat from the front shifts the center of effort forward, causing lee helm. Now your rudder and headsail are fighting each other. The stronger the wind, the stronger the fight. You can see proof of it with the rudder indicator pegged constantly to windward.
I think you see where I’m going with this, and it wouldn’t be much of a story if the autopilot hadn’t failed. It overheated, screamed its last digital curse, and released the magic smoke. Now, with nothing to stop the lee helm, the boat rounded down. The boom gybed, snapped the preventer, slammed into the shrouds, and broke into two pieces, both of which were now thrashing through the air. The pieces completely demolished the dodger and took out the bimini while we ducked in the companionway, trying to figure out how to lasso the thing without getting brained.
