Dismasting Archives

Titanium Chainplates on Sailboats…

25 October 2019October 25, 2019rebecca.childress@yahoo.comLeave a comment

Titanium Chainplates on Sailboats started to be installed on sailboats, before Brick House was dismasted in 2011, because that’s when we replaced our stainless steel chain plates with titanium chainplates, titanium Clevis pins, titanium tangs, and although we were semi early adopters, we were not the first to do this. We were so impressed and the prices of titanium came down so much, 7 years later we replaced our bow roller-Stemplate with titanium too. If we could install titanium rigging, I think we would. Our Titanium components, 8 years later, look like its all brand new. There have been no issues at all with corrosion. They are the shiny jewels on this old sailboat, the part sure to never fail. But there is one problem with thinking that our mast should now stay up forever. One more thing a sailor must think about if sailing around the world, and has replaced he standing rigging, right down to the chainplates.

In a few minutes, we will be posting Another DIY Sailing/sailboat video about something else that affects the integrity of your rig, that could result in a dismasting even if you DO have titanium chainplates, or all new rigging. It will be a 2 part series. So be sure you are subscribed on YouTube to Patrick Childress Sailing to find out all about it, and be notified. It’s not that difficult to guess perhaps, but something many many of us forget to examine on a regular basis.

Patrick wrote an excellent article for Practical Sailor, and it is on the Allied Titanium Website since this is who we worked with to make the chainplates out of Grade 5 Titanium, the only grade of titanium Patrick can recommend for these high load components.

Click Here for the entire article in PDF format, or if you prefer, here are photos of each page.

Here is most of the article in text, without photos, in case your internet doesn’t allow the photos above, or if the link doesn’t work.

Through the commotion of a 30- knot squall, I heard the chainplate pop. It was not an unusually loud pop. The result was impressive, nonetheless. What once was, just a few moments earlier, the tallest part of the mast on our Valiant 40 Brick House was now the lowest, scraping the tops of waves in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. The dispirited look on my wife Rebecca’s face made the terrible situation even more depressing. I swore, in rebuilding our rig, we would never again be the victim of the weaknesses stainless steel can hide. We would replace our chain plates, toggle pins, and mast tangs with titanium.
In name alone, the word titanium evokes images of superhuman strength. The metal is aptly named after the Titans, the race of powerful Greek gods, descendants from Gaia and Uranus.
Titanium is whitish in color and the fourth most abundant metallic element in the Earth’s crust. Ninety-five percent of mined titanium becomes titanium dioxide. Titanium dioxide is the white pigment added to all types of paints. Titanium dioxide makes paper bright
mined titanium is used to make metal components that must be light, strong, and resistant to heat and corrosion. This five percent, though small, represents a rapidly growing market.
Landing gear of large commercial aircraft, like the 747 and 777, are made of titanium. No other metal has the resiliency to repetitive shock loading and offers the weight savings of titanium. Nearly 80 percent of the structure of the Lockheed SR 71 reconnaissance plane, the highest fly- ing, fastest plane ever built, is made of titanium. From drill bits to eyeglass frames to tennis rackets to artificial heart valves, titanium metal is in our lives every day.
Of particular interest to sailors is titanium’s resistance to galvanic corrosion. Only silver, gold, and graph- ite are more noble than titanium. For titanium to be even slightly affected by sea water, the water must first be heated to over 230 degrees. Cryogenic temperatures will not affect the perfor- mance of titanium. It has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal and is non-magnetic. Titanium is up to 20 times more scratch resistant than
The new titanium chainplate shines brilliantly among the stainless steel ones it replaced, including the one that broke.
white and is the white paste that some sailors like to smear on their nose on a sunny day to provide a physical barrier against UV radiation. Our white homes and sailboats are resplendent in white titanium.

stainless steels.

The more one considers the physical
characteristics of titanium, and how perfectly suited it seems for marine ap- plications, the more one might wonder why we don’t see more of it in our boats. Part of the problem is the relative cost of titanium alloys, but a second factor is probably more to blame for titanium’s scarcity in the marine market. Titanium fabrication is a highly specialized field that requires specialized equipment. You can’t just hire your local welder to go out and build you a titanium arch.
Marine-grade titaniuM
The performance characteristics of ti- tanium will change greatly with its al- loying of other metals for customized work. Commercially pure titanium is typically rated from Grade 1 to Grade 4, with each higher grade correspond- ing to increasing strength levels. Some of these grades are used to withstand boiling acids; some are used for heat and corrosion-resistant applications such as heat exchangers and chemical process- ing tanks.
The marine industry standard is Grade 5, Ti-6Al-4V. This alloy is 90 percent titanium, 6 percent aluminum, and 4 percent vanadium. The alloy is so widely used that it represents 75 percent of all titanium alloys produced. Grade 5 has a yield strength over 31⁄2 times greater than 316 stainless steel, yet weighs only 56 percent as much. Yield strength, sometimes called engineering strength, is the amount of pressure or force a material can take before chang- ing shape without returning to its origi- nal shape. But titanium is also nearly twice as resilient as steel, so it will flex and return to its original shape under the same loads that might permanently bend a comparable piece of stainless.
Not only is titanium strong, it is high- ly resistant to chemicals. Being a reactive metal, it spontaneously forms an oxide film whenever there is any amount of water or air in the environment. That oxide film eliminates the possibility of crevice corrosion or stress-corrosion cracking. Titanium is immune to gal- vanic corrosion when immersed in seawater, but like stainless steel, tita-
nium may encourage electrolysis of a less noble metal it is in contact with. Profurl roller-furling uses ti- tanium screws that pass through the alu- minum body of their housings to mini- mize galvanic corro- sion. Still, an isolator like LanoCote (www. lanacote.com) or Tef- Gel (www.tefgel.com) needs to be applied to the threads of the titanium screws, the same as one would do if stainless-steel screws were used. Above the waterline, Titanium in contact with 316 stainless is of no greater concern than where stainless- steel threaded studs screw into bronze turnbuckles. Working sheets of titanium into yacht parts requires the same tools that are used for forming stainless steel. Drilling requires sharp cobalt drill bits turning at similar speeds used for stainless steel and plenty of lubricant (olive oil works) for cooling.

Sawing and grinding also require sharp tools with good chip removal. Cutting with waterjet and laser is the most effective. But shears that slice through thick 316 stain- less steel will stop when forced against equally thick plates of titanium.
When bending titanium, the bend area must first be heated to around 800 degrees, as the yield strength drops to about 40 percent at that temperature. If titanium is overheated to the point where it glows, it can react with air and become oxygen embrittled. For this same reason, cutting titanium with oxyacetylene flame is not recommended.

The crew of Brick House waited until morning to begin the tricky process of removing the mainsail after a stainless steel chaiplate failed, causing the mast to snap.
experienced. Air will contaminate the weld causing discoloration and brittle- ness. An inert gas like 99.99 percent pure argon must shield the area on both sides of the weld till the material cools below 800 degrees.
The physical properties of titanium are exactly those that are needed in sail- boat rigging as it pounds through ocean waves. Unlike stainless steel, titanium will not deteriorate, or crack, or rust, or have an unexpected catastrophic failure. Once installed on a sailboat with titanium fasteners, a properly sized titanium chainplate will never need polishing, although welds should be checked.
So why has the leisure marine industry been slow to use titanium?

For years, the high cost of titanium made it an aerospace metal for govern- ment projects and commercial airplane parts where there was no alternative metal to use. That high cost was an unforeseen result of the protectionist Berry Amendment. The 1941 legislation made it mandatory for the U.S. govern- ment to purchase only 100 percent U.S. manufactured goods intended for mili- tary use. Titanium was soon added to the list of specialty metals covered un-
der the Berry Amendment. This gave the few largest U.S. titanium makers a lock on the world’s largest titanium customer, the U.S. military. This elimi- nated competition and kept the price of titanium flying high.
This grip on the U.S. titanium market also eliminated any need to streamline the smelting process. But when the U.S. military shifted from a strategic bomber defense to a missile defense, the use of expensive titanium plummeted and some U.S. producers went out of business. The few that remained could only survive by keeping the price of titanium high for their government customers.
According to Christopher Greimes, chief executive officer of Allied Titanium, with the current economic downturn, the U.S. military would like to remove titanium from the specialty metals list as they need more and cheaper titanium, not just for use in aircraft, but for use in armor plating for ground troops. The U.S. titanium producers are strongly lob- bying to keep titanium on the specialty metals list. President Barack Obama is allowing an unsigned repeal of titanium from that list to collect dust on his desk. Meanwhile, other countries like China, Japan, and Russia have been ramping up their refined smelting technologies and producing less costly titanium for the world market.
As world production and use in the leisure marine market increases, the price of titanium should continue to fall. One day, titanium will replace stainless steels. The savings to insurance compa- nies that will no longer have to pay for expensive boat losses and the increased safety to sailors will be enormous.

Practical Matters

The problem for an individual boat owner is that the local welding shops do not carry a stock of titanium sheets and to order small lots and fabricate a few parts can be time consuming and ultimately not the price one would hope to pay. There are large outlets for titanium um fabrication that solve the problem. A company such as Allied Titanium has fabricating outlets in Europe, U.S., and China. A boat owner can log onto the Allied website to view thousands of items such as nuts, bolts and chain- plates. If a particular boat part is not listed, it can be fabricated.
We needed 10 new chainplates, all of the same design, and a combination bow roller/chainplate assembly. Since there had been no previous purchase for these items for a Valiant 40, we had options on how to enter the information into the Allied database.
First we logged in and became a customer, creating a user name, and pass- word. We could trace the chainplate outline and bolthole placement onto stiff paper, noting the thickness of the original plate and the desired finish such as sandblasted or polished. However,
we thought sending an actual chainplate would be better. Allied then hand drafted our chainplate into its 3D system. We could watch online as the chainplate was received at Allied and made its way through the design process. If a customer supplies design in a 3D CAD file in SolidWorks, Rhino, or 3D Auto CAD, there is no drafting charge at all. If the customer supplies a two-dimensional drawing that is properly dimensioned, with tolerances, finish, etc. and they al- low Allied to add their part to the Unique Product Database (UPD), then there is no charge for conversion to a SolidWorks 3D CAD file.
At Allied, the part name, tolerances, finish, titanium grade, etc., are entered into the UPD, creating both an item number and a temporary UPD number. The customer then approves the drawings. When the design process is completed and the customer approves the price, the part design is then transmitted to one of Allied Titanium’s factories, some of which are in China.
The immediate hesitation of many boat owners is the idea of having anything made in China. Japan produced a lot of junk after World War II, then learned to do it right and has equaled or outdistanced America in many manufacturing fields. So too, China is refining the quality of its products.
As Practical Sailor pointed out in the August 2011 look at mainsails, sails made in China are often rebranded and sold by the top sailmakers in America. Nearly all stainless steel wire rigging used on yachts now comes from China or Taiwan. When it comes to Chinese titanium, that metal has been strategic in the past, requiring strict quality control by the Chinese military. This means that Chinese factories and workers know how to make titanium products properly. The Chinese are now cashing in on the world demand for titanium faster than Obama can sign his name.
According to Allied, “Each time titanium is smelted, resmelted, or milled, it must have mechanical and chemical tests done on the lot. When a customer requests a ‘certs,’ the results from the last certification is pro- vided. In most cases, this is the mill
certification.” However, some U.S. customers of Allied send a sample of their purchase to an independent lab for backup testing. “In all cases, our 6-4 titanium parts have tested above 128,000 psi yield strength. If a customer has an issue with a certain country, we can manufacture their parts in another country (at a different price, of course),” Greimes said.
When the part is complete, it is sent directly from the manufacturing plant
to the Allied Titanium Quality Assur- ance Department in the United States via Fedex, UPS, or DHL. After passing quality assurance, it is shipped directly to the customer The street price for one of our chain- plates was $260 at the time of this writing. We saved considerably by negotiat- ing a price for all ten to be made at the same time. From the day we mailed our old chainplate to Allied Titanium to the day 10 titanium chainplates arrived in our hands, took 65 days.
We installed all new chainplates,
bolts and nuts, clevis pins, mast tangs, and bow roller assembly made of tita- nium. One immediate problem was the brilliant shine of the chainplates sticking up from the deck. They sud- denly made the paint job on our boat look terrible. A sandblasted finish for the chainplates is available, and this might be a good option for the owner of an older boat. Over the past 6 years,
the money we have not paid to insurance companies has been reinvested in continually upgrading electronics and safety equipment on our floating home. A new rig with a foundation in titanium will certainly keep us safer and stronger than ever before. I only wish we were wiser and made the titanium upgrades before our rig came down.
Patrick Childress completed his first circumnavigation in 1982 in a souped-up 27-foot Catalina. He and his wife, Rebecca Childress are currently sailing in the Pacific, continuing on their west-about circumnavigation contact Allied Titanium, 800/725-8143, http://www.alliedtitanium.com

Maggi Chain USA, New Electronic Charts, AMT Composites for Fiberglass

Indian Ocean Crossing, The Preparation

Brick House Dismasted in Kiribati, the middle of the Pacific!

15 September 2011January 5, 2019rebecca.childress@yahoo.com4 Comments

This post recounts the moments following the dismasting disaster about the dismasting of our Bluewater sailboat, a Valiant 40, ‘Brick House’, in 2011, while sailing in the remote atolls of Kiribati, enroute to Vanuatu in the South Pacific

DISMASTED
Again my head slammed into the bent and mangled mast. What had appeared a rolly anchorage amongst coral reefs was a Twirl-A-Ride at the top of our broken mast stump. The other mast half was folded over the side of the boat, dipping in the water.

Tethered 20 feet above the deck the words of Bill Seifert in his book Offshore Sailing were being bounced out of my memory. “Cotter pins should not be bent open more than 10 degrees.” Cotter pins which were bent open at a small angle, holding dangling rigging, were easy to slip free from the clevis. The pins bent into a curlicue were taking all my effort, strength and patience to bend straight with pliers and small screwdrivers. They were becoming a real headache, in every form.

The day before, when sailing south in sunshine and gentle breeze, the squall had come on us suddenly. Rebecca, and I were below as the wind slammed. But it was only 30 knots; wind this boat can easily handle although I would have preferred to shorten sail. As I moved to the wheel to turn downwind to ease the pressure, I heard a pop and watched the top of the mast along with reefed mainsail and genoa, fold gracefully to starboard; the mast creasing just below the spreaders. Situations I had read and heard about in wild weather in terrible latitudes were now upon my wife and me. The big difference was that we were dressed in shorts and T-shirts 95 miles south of the equator and 307 miles west of the International Date Line, near the southern stretch of the Kirabati atolls.

With the wind dropping and rain slowing, Rebecca stood eagerly on deck asking what she could do to help. But where do you start to pick up a disaster when everything broken is high overhead or in the water out of reach? I too was at a loss, responding “Tell ME what to do!”
Then the mast section sticking up from the deck jerked sharply to starboard as though it could be twisted out of shape. That marked the starting point. We had already turned downwind to ease the rolling but the jib furler and genoa dragging in the water were still attached to the top of the mast which was also scraping the ocean with each roll of the boat. The sail, having opened like a baleen’s mouth, transferred tremendous pressure, torquing what remained of the unsupported rig. It became obvious that the immediate job was to dive into the ocean and cut the genoa halyard free of the dragging and plunging mast tip and pull the toggle pin to free the head stay and genoa furler. But the boat could leave me behind creating an additional unpleasant situation. We looked over the sides and pulled what wet sails and lines we could find inside of the lifelines before starting the engine. Shifting into reverse at idle, the tortured genoa wallowed and collapsed its load of ocean and sat there undulating like a large Dacron jellyfish.Although Brick House was no longer moving, I wore a life jacket and rope tether for my initial time in the ocean. If I were injured or the boat began to move again, this would give Rebecca a lifeline to me. Later, swim fins without a lifejacket gave me the mobility needed to complete the work.With the ocean and mast moving in syncopated directions, the work was dangerous and difficult, limiting me to intermittent attempts at freeing the sail hanging from the upside-down mast. The biggest threat was being punched in the head or shoulders by the mast slamming then pulling back from the ocean. I was watchful, but with one plunge I was unable to move quick enough. In nanoseconds, I had the frightening feeling of terrible injury as growing pressure seemed intent to pierce my thigh; but the offending VHF antenna bent like a child’s sword leaving me only with a feeling of good luck. As soon as the genoa was freed from the mast, Rebecca stopped the engine and together we hauled the sail and furling gear on board.

It was the failure of the port upper shroud chainplate that caused the mast to fold. In the fall, the upper shroud wrapped over the top of the stump pulling with it, 4 feet into the air, a 5 gallon jug of outboard gasoline. The gas spilled a slippery, smelly slick on the port side deck which added to our difficulties. The other shrouds lay in a mass of stiff spaghetti snaking around the deck.

We did not want to pull pins or cut cables and heave equipment overboard. We needed to save and rebuild everything we could. Besides, with a keel stepped mast, there is no way to jettison a bent and toppled mast without first cutting it through at deck level.

It took hours to regain order and secure supports to the dragging mast head. We hardly noticed the sun disappearing till we could see no more. But now we could not risk starting the engine for a second time without first entering the dark ocean and verify fully nothing would tangle in the propeller.

Our underwater light was invaluable this evening. Normally I plunge the reefs in daylight looking for sizable fish to pursue. Tonight I entered the black ocean slowly, the narrow beam of light searching for the profile and glinting eyes of large pursuers. But in the glow, the keel of Brick House and I were the only things swimming. Everything below the waterline looked tranquil except for the boarding ladder which rolled and bubbled deep in white foam then rose again. We could start the engine and be on our way. Click,click,click. How could this be? The only time in four years, when I most need the engine to start, and it won’t turn over even though the battery is fully charged! Click, click, click. Unbelievable. I am always in the engine room checking, cleaning, changing. Click, click. I had visions of now jury rig sailing southwest, 960 miles to Vanuatu. Rebecca put the battery selector to “Both”. The engine dragged slowly then revved and purred. At no time after this did the engine ever falter to start!

The north end of Tabiteuea is not an atoll but a long, low coconut island open to the west. It was the least bumpy anchorage we could reach in our situation. We had all night to pass the 25 miles to get there. Only when the sun was high did we slowly wind through the uncharted labyrinth of coral till our way was fully blocked, two miles from shore.

In the light of a new day, Rebecca was incredibly despondent looking at our broken home. I reminded her about the quote; “The difference between adversity and adventure is attitude.” I asked, “Isn’t this an adventure?!” Her eyes reddened and watered, “We are ruined…this is nothing but a disaster!!!” In reality our situation could have been worse. At least we had our rudder and plenty of diesel fuel. But she pointed out, “If we had only known to change the chain plate we would be on our way to Vanuatu or Rotuma.”

In my diligence to shine our stainless steel, I had been polishing away the evidence. At the top of the chainplate, a second layer of steel had been welded to add thickness for the clevis pin to pull against. Moisture had been seeping between the two metals at the clevis pin hole. That chainplate was going to break and with luck it failed where an anchorage was not far away. I should have inspected the chainplates with a magnifying glass and crack exposing dye or, better yet, replaced them on a scheduled basis like we do the wire stays.

In our bumpy anchorage the first task was to save the main sail. When the mast folded, the main sail slides did the splits; one group stayed on the vertical mast stump and the remaining were stuck in the fallen section. The stress stopped at a point which allowed the sail to spread but not enough to tear it apart. The first order was to reach the uppermost slide on the stump and cut the tabbing or pull the pin on the slide to relieve the pressure. Using the halyard brakes for steps, just enough of a toe hold allowed the proper reach. With that release of pressure the remaining slides on one side of the sail slid off the bent mast into the ocean. The other slides were released from the mast at the gooseneck. The mainsail was then flaked onto the boom and covered with the sail cover.

The next problem was to figure out how to get to the top of the stump. From there I could then release more dangling wires, secure rope stays all around and set blocks for halyards. Lacking the native skills to climb coconut palms, we decided to first get a messenger line over the mast to which a stronger line would follow.

The one firearm we have on board is a high powered slingshot. It seemed reasonably simple to shoot a projectile with kite string attached over the mast. The problem was, no matter how carefully the string was flaked in preparation for the shot, the run would snag on the slightest resistance and pull itself into a tangle. Far more time was spent untangling cats cradles than slinging out the projectile. We pulled out the heavy artillery. The monkey’s fist is a hardball of zinc artfully wrapped in rope and tied to 3/16″ line. Although cushioned by the wounds of line, the fist can smash solar panels and split deck hatches. As I was gearing up for my aerial bombardment, Rebecca scrambled to spread a bed of cushions.

Throw after throw of the monkey’s fist went high, low, and into left field. Several times the fist draped over a hard spot and doubled back to wind around its trailing line like a tether ball. With great fortune, like a tether ball, it always unwound itself rather than spinning into a knot high out of reach.

I always had a better chance tossing a wringer with my eyes closed. After 18 throws, my tosses became less calculating and more menacing as my eyes squinted tighter. But then, as persistence and luck would have it, the fist sailed in a perfect arch gracefully laying its trailing line over the mast top at just the right angle. This messenger line pulled the 7/16″ diameter line over the mast and was secured to a cleat. To that line was attached the Top Climber.

The Top Climber is similar to what rock climbers or giant Sequoia tree ascenders use. The method is to stand in the foot straps then slide the hand gripper up the line to bring up the seat straps. Sitting in the seat straps, the foot straps are then slid up the line. It is progress which enables the user to easily identify with the mechanics of an inchworm. The system may be slow but it works for unassisted elevating. In a rolly anchorage, a helmet would be useful to ease the battering.

If the Top Climber system had not worked, there are two other ways to get to the top of the mast. The same 7/16″ line could pull up a block and tackle to which a bosuns chair is attached. A person in the chair can hoist himself and secure the line to the chair at the proper elevation. Any 50ish man who has used this system says it will tend to cramp the hands and certainly is not as easy to use as it once was. However, a person on deck could assist with the pulling and then secure the line to a deck cleat. The last option is to use the natives of the Pacific as inspiration and simply shinny the mast as it were a coconut palm while wearing a harness. At the top, the tether attached to the harness would be wrapped over the top of the mast and quickly made fast. Hanging there, the lines and pulley necessary for a bosuns chair could be secured before making a decent. This latter method is made even more difficult as hanging in mid air, ones own body weight gradually crushes deeper against the harness straps making movement and breathing difficult. Safe working time is short. While I was aloft on the Top Climber, Rebecca did what she could to steady lines to keep me from swinging and banging so hard against the rigging.

With access to the mast top, I was able only then to see a single bolt head from the running pole slide was all that the rope was truly resting on. A slip off that finger hold and I would have to grab something quickly as my support line would slide down the broken stay, over the spreader and into the ocean. There was little alternative but to stay focused and keep working while keeping constant pressure on the support line. I continued to drop all unnecessary wire stays and salvable electrical fitting from the mast to Rebecca’s waiting hands below. Spare lines from the cockpit locker were wrapped, woven and tied around the stump top to form head stays and back stays and shrouds. From three separate looped lines, 3 blocks were shackled and halyard lines rove. My work aloft, for this rocking anchorage anyway, was complete and I inched my way down with a headache and a several red scrapes and dings.

The first item to be raised on a halyard was the emergency Single Side Band antenna. Ours is a 1/8″ stainless steel wire, insulated on each end with plastic thimbles and tied with lines to the stern and bow pulpit. Plastic water hose was slid to the middle so when raised, the wire would be insulated from contact with the mast. The minimum length for an emergency antenna is 23 feet, the longer the better. Originally intended to go up a masthead halyard, our antenna is 46′ long. GTO-15 wire is the most prescribed wire for connecting the antenna to the antenna tuner but in our case the largest core wire we had on the boat was used. Our emergency antenna worked equally, if not better than the antenna which came down with the rigging. Over the weeks ahead, we would keep in touch with cruisers nets and to begin organizing the repairs of our boat.

There were so many problems for us to solve, we had to discipline ourselves not to race ahead but to complete the most immediate job. When that task was complete then we could advance to the next item on the list. Now that our decks were cleared and organized and the dragging mast section was well supported, we could decide where we should sail for repairs. We could not sever and lower the bent mast to the deck till we reached a calmer anchorage. In the Tabiteuea anchorage it took 3 days to clear the rigging and get order to our decks. As we prepared to leave, we gained a renewed attitude and fortitude to rebuild our bricks.

Mast dragging

An off the wind radius had us looking for possibilities in Vanuautu and as far away as Australia and points north. What we needed most was fast mail and frequent cargo shipping from the U.S., a place to lay out a mast and a crane to lift it. 620 miles northwest lay Majuro, Marshall Islands. That U.S. associated island fit our repair requirements. But the seasonal winds were shifting to north of east which could make it a difficult, if not impossible target. We were racing the seasons with a slow, broken boat. Our first stop would be Tarawa, 225 miles to the northwest.

It must have been that seasonal shift which, for the only time in months, brought settled winds of less than 12 knots and at times a push from abaft the beam. Our odd looking sails assisted the diesel engine gliding us along at the most fuel efficient 1800 RPMs. Two days later we dropped the anchor in Tarawa off the town of Betio.

We found shelter in the middle of the perfectly calm but tiny inner harbor. Working from a bosuns chair, the sawing began where the mast was bent over. It took 3 fully charged batteries for our 18 volt Ryobi cordless reciprocating saw to work its way through most of the metal. This was one time Rebecca appreciated not carrying out her threat to empty my tool locker and refill it with a bicycle or sewing machine.

It was delicate work to guide the saw blade around halyards pinched inside the mast but slicing through the expensive bundle of electrical wires could not be avoided. An arm powered hacksaw blade made the final slices to drop the full weight of the mast section onto two halyards. With help from the crew of SV Summer Sky, it was surprisingly easy slackening one halyard while the safety of the other halyard supported the 150 pound weight of the mast. Near the deck, one halyard was repositioned at the balance point and the spar was rotated to the side deck where it was set on a cushion of fenders. The weight of that mast section was stowed on the starboard which would be the windward side of our next passage.

With a stubby rig that looked like something Shackleton would use to escape his Antarctic adventure, we worked our way north. As we sailed past other atolls we kept to their sheltered west shores and made comfortable progress in unseasonably tranquil conditions. Our bucket of luck was heavily tapped on this 390 mile passage. The customary 18 knot winds and large waves returned only as we picked up a mooring in the safety of Majuro.

At our destination, the tedious work of ordering materials and the wait for them to arrive would begin. Brick House had been cracked but soon it will sail with titanium chainplates and a rig to take us safely to whatever latitude we choose.

Are we insured? Find out How we choose to Insure this old boat!