X-OldHeader: From hahn@unetix.com-DeleteThis.com Wed May 23 12:10:15 2001 Return-Path: <hahn@unetix.com-DeleteThis.com> Received: from opus.labs.agilent.com (root@opus.labs.agilent.com-DeleteThis.com [130.29.244.179]) by jr.labs.agilent.com (8.9.3 (PHNE_18979)/8.9.3 AgilentLabs Workstation) with ESMTP id MAA16357 for <wind_talk_ls@jr.labs.agilent.com-DeleteThis.com>; Wed, 23 May 2001 12:10:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from msgbas1.cos.agilent.com (msgbas1.cos.agilent.com [130.29.152.58]) by opus.labs.agilent.com (8.9.3 (PHNE_18979)/8.9.3 AgilentLabs Workstation) with ESMTP id MAA13915 for <wind_talk@opus.labs.agilent.com-DeleteThis.com>; Wed, 23 May 2001 12:10:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from unetix.com (unetix.com [209.237.2.194]) by msgbas1.cos.agilent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B585E9F3 for <wind_talk@opus.labs.agilent.com-DeleteThis.com>; Wed, 23 May 2001 13:10:17 -0600 (MDT) Received: from unetix.com (adsl-216-101-184-123.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [216.101.184.123]) by unetix.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA00758; Wed, 23 May 2001 12:18:55 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from hahn@unetix.com-DeleteThis.com) Sender: hahn@unetix.com-DeleteThis.com Message-ID: <3B0C0B22.D839D80C@unetix.com-DeleteThis.com> Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 12:10:26 -0700 From: Jonathan Hahn <hahn@unetix.com-DeleteThis.com> Organization: Unetix Incorporated X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.1-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en To: wind_talk@opus.labs.agilent.com-DeleteThis.com Subject: Breakdown report at 3rd yesterday
I had a breakdown yesterday at 3rd, but I couldn't have been too much
luckier...
I was out enjoying the conditions out in the channel yesterday
well-powered on a 5.5m2 when my board (ASD 9'0") simply shot out from
under me and left me holding my rig (and sinking). The pin that
connects my universal joint to the board sheared at the rubber of the
universal. This is the second time I have experienced pin shear like
this but that's not too bad for over 15 years of windsurfing. I've
never experienced a rubber universal itself failing. My universals are
probably over 5 years old, so perhaps I had it coming. They are Mistral
systems that I bought at a Vela summer sail.
I ditched the rig and swam for the board which was being prodded away
from me by the swell in the channel. Eventually I caught it and brought
it back to the rig which was still afloat. I would guess you have a few
minutes before it's unrecoverable. Fortunately, another sailor (Akram?)
was in the vicinity and stopped to help me. He helped me stabilize my
board and rig while I ran a line under my mast track adapter and through
the nylon u-joint safety webbing. It took a few attempts but we finally
got it as tight as possible, but that still had about 6 inches of play.
We were lucky that it was ebbing and so we didn't get blown downwind
while we were doing this. I'd guess it took about 10 minutes or so.
Then I tried waterstarting. This took many attempts and failures but I
once I got up with the mast positioned properly on the board (up wind of
the mast track) I was underway and even able to hook in. I stayed out
of the footstraps since the dynamics of sailing this configuration were
very weird and took contortions to maintain my course. But still, I was
able to sail non-stop about 3/4 the way in from beyond the middle of the
channel. Once I dropped, I just walked the rest of the way since the
tide was out and my board was getting screwed up.
The mast scratched and caused a depression in my board, but other than
that, I survived the episode unscathed. I never really thought about
how I'd connect a mast to the board in an emergency before , but I now
realize that being able to tie something to the mast track is very
important.
Thanks to Akram and everyone who stopped to check up on me.
Jon
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