David's Diary: Tuesday, December 18, 2001

Barcelona With A Big Surprise

Our travel to Barcelona was uneventful. Visibility was less than a half-mile due to haze so we did not get to enjoy the views of Barcelona until we finally arrived at the entrance to Port Vell. Port Vell is both the commercial and pleasure harbour. We planned to stay at the head of the harbour and it took over half an hour after rounding the breakwater to pass through the commercial part of the harbour.

We were fortunate that when we first arrived at the entrance a ferry was making its way in. We let the ferry go first and followed it all the way in. This proved to be a good move, as Port Vell now has an opening bridge that was not documented in our cruising pilot. Because we were so close to the ferry the bridge was open, but it was only seconds after we had passed under the bridge that it started closing. Without any pilot guide information on the bridge, its height, opening times, or calling frequency we could have been stuck on the other side of the bridge for some time.

Broken Boom

This morning in Puerto de Blanes we were in for a surprise. Yesterday we didn't do any sailing, but today we hoped to get a bit of sailing in, as there was a light wind. As we were preparing the boat, I looked up at the boom and couldn't believe that the boom had broken.

Extent of Bend

Fortunately, the boom had not broken completely in two, although the starboard side of the boom just above the traveler has been crushed to the point of breaking. While the boom is significantly bent, the position of the bend is hard to see from the cockpit. We think that the damage was the result of the accidental gybe that we did two days ago on our trip to L'Estartit. While the gybe did not feel that strong to Karalee and I, it was clearly stronger than we thought. The good news is that the boom was strong enough to keep sailing the boat -- strong enough that it took us a couple of days to notice the damage.

In examining what we did that day, there are a few things we would do differently next time. First, we will look at rigging a preventer. This is a line led to the end of the boom from a strong point on the boat and helps prevent an accidental gybe from happening in the first place. But we would also have the outhaul on tighter (the outhaul is the line that pulls the mainsail to the end of the boom). While we had winched in the outhaul it's possible that there was enough slack for the foot of the mainsail to snap during the gybe adding to the forces. And we had forgotten to put on the vang (a pulley system that prevents the boom from rising when sailing downwind). Finally, while sailing downwind in more than 30 knots of true wind speed we'll be a little more careful, even though we thought we were being conservative in sailing with only 3/4 of the main out and no headsail. We just have to chalk this up to climbing the learning curve of both Dragonsinger and the Mediterranean. We just hope that we don't break anything else as we continue to climb the steep learning curve of a large and complex new boat and the windy Med.