Division II loses her mast

On Tuesday the 12^th May our mast fell down.  For this blog entry I am going to let the pictures do the talking, as it is still hard at times to order all our thoughts and impressions about it clearly.

 



Mast base seen through a saloon hatch - not quite right!

First break - we assume it broke on impact with the deck

Dan working on getting the boom away from the mast.

The boom with the sail under it - not the way around it should be!

The saloon hatch closest to the mast stbd side, dented on the outside and the kids found this crack on the inside

Paige did a great first aid job on the hole in the bathroom.  Stuffed it with a towel and plastic bags to stop water coming in.

We had several of these little birds come and land on the boat during all of the drama, think they may have been blown out to us

End of Day 0, tied to the dock at Kiama Harbour, two sections of the mast still hanging off of the side.

Start of Day 1, Rylee using spanner and allen keys to get the track cars of the main sail

End of Day 1, boom stowed along the side deck

Top two mast sections on the dock waiting to get back on board

Rigging lines and halyards all piled up together

End of Day 1, all three mast sections back on board, and sails (main in two pieces!)


Things we are thankful for.

No one was injured at the time, (but 24 hours later we were finding bruises, scraped knuckles, sore muscles and broken nails!)

Division II was still right way up and we still had a place to live and sleep

That we were close to land and that we were able to get assistance and the readiness of people for wanting to help

That the kids were ready and able to help and that they did so well.  They were able to tidy away lines, get tools when asked, Paige packed a bag of food! Oliver started taking photos and movies. And they all seem to have taken it in their stride as another day on Division II.

The lower part of the mast landed on the deck where there was a bulk head under it, which we believe stopped it from caving in it deck.

We have managed to recover all of the rig, very battered and not  all of it will be able to used it gives us more options than if we had had to dump it.

Hole in bathroom from spreader tip well above water line

Genoa seems to only have small rips, which we think will be repairable

We were able to keep all the hardware from mainsail

 

The Mast Coming Down, By Paige (written as we were being towed into Kiama Harbour)

It started at around 11.50am. Mum, Dad, Oliver and I were having something to eat.

Suddenly there was a gust of wind and Dad went to put in third reef.

Then everything went in slow motion and I saw the mast fall down.

Later they told me I screamed.

We tried to get out a VHF call but the antenna was on the top of the mast and without it we couldn’t get a signal out, so we called 000.

We got the right info to the right people and got to work on the mast.

I took charge of the phone.

I went to check that no water was getting into the bathroom and found a big hole that the spreader made so I stuffed a tea towel and some plastic bags in it to prevent splashes coming in.

A nice man (called Josh) came out on a jet ski from Surf Rescue whose friend had called him because he had seen our mast disappear and thought we had capsized.  He had a hand held VHF and talked to the rescue Westpac Helicopter for us.

Then the Police tow boat came and Josh had to go so they could tow us into Kiama Harbour where they allowed us to tie up to a dock.