Lat: 12 37.037′ S
Lon: 58 56.775′ E

After dinner last night, I had a short call with Colin Mack of Mack Sails in Florida (thanks to Tim for helping us set up the call). Mack Sails helped us re-rig the boat in Ft. Pierce before we left and Colin’s been great at taking calls and answering questions on the two occasions that we’ve been far from boating resources and had concerns about the rig. He’d read over the issue and temporary fix on the blog and recommended we secure the shroud with a strong shackle instead of a lashing with small line that could chafe through easily. Although I didn’t trust the lashing enough to sail, it wasn’t chafing and I still hadn’t been able to come up with a good shackle solution.

The problem was finding the right sized shackle, one small enough to fit through the turnbuckle but large enough to be able to encircle both the turnbuckle and the clevis pin. After finding nothing that would work, I started looking around at everything on the boat to see what I could possibly use that hadn’t yet come to mind. In the anchor locker I found just the right thing–large, pear-shaped stainless shackles that we occasionally use for our anchor bridle. The size was just right, so there was only one problem left to solve.

DSC_0700 The table was covered with shackles, etc. for a couple of days

DSC_0701 Drawing out a better solution and trying to get the spacing correct

The new problem was tensioning the shroud. Usually you would just loosen and re-tension it by turning the turnbuckle, but with the jury-rig shackle attached, the turnbuckle would be frozen in place and would instead have to be pre-adjusted to the proper length. After some careful measurements (which I somehow managed to screw up even with a detailed drawing and measuring twice) we got started. Lauren turned the boat downwind and we loosened the starboard shroud until we couldn’t safely loosen it any more. As we loosened it, we also tightened the mast-supporting halyards on the port side, slowly bending the mast to port and creating slack to work with in the port shroud. The key was finally figuring how how to rig a block so that we could use a winch to pull down the shroud itself with lots of force while still keeping it lined up with where we needed to attach it. Eventually it was in place, and after a couple of tense moments fixing the clevis and cotter pins in place while the block was groaning, we were finally re-rigged with all stainless. We finished by re-tightening the starboard shroud, adding a backup lashing to the port jury-rig, and cleaning up. This time around, the seas were much calmer and we didn’t have to deal with the mast shaking and dancing above us. The rig is still looser than it should be, but tonight I’ll feel comfortable sleeping below instead of up in the salon waiting for something to let go. We still have the main halyard and topping lift tied off as backup supports and the re-rigged shroud has three backup attachments, so even if our repair lets go, we shouldn’t lose the mast. I’m also really looking forward to a day without working in such close proximity to hardware under high loads.

DSC_0703 We ended up making a spacing change and adding a backup lashing, but this it what basically what we ended up with.

We have half a jib out now and were making 3.5 to 4 knots before a squall came through and the wind died down to almost nothing. Hopefully we’ll feel good enough about things tomorrow to put the whole jib out. The good news is that even if it’s slow going, we’re sailing and feel much better about the rig. Thanks to everyone who’s helped us out. It looks like the next challenge is going to be getting into port and then finding a way to get a replacement part before the tough journey down the Mozambique channel.