Working on the boat

Dinghy davits falling down, falling down, falling down

By January 7, 2016 No Comments

You must sing the title to the tune of “London Bridges” to get the humor in this potentially catastrophic situation. You see  I was sailing close hauled in 25+ knots of wind with 6-8 foot waves Christmas Day with two guest as we returned to St Thomas from a week in the Spanish VI. We were reefed down and still cruising at over 8 knots and were halfway to St Thomas and within 2-3 miles of where I wanted to tack and make for Buck Island to take them to swim with the turtles.

All of a sudden the line holding the inside aft part of the dinghy parted and dropped that corner of the boat into the water, which acted like a huge scope collecting water that was passing by at 8 knots. Knowing we did not have time to lower sails before the entire davit system was ripped off, I jumped to work starting the engines and facing the boat dead into the wind in order to depower the sails and stop our speed. Once I did this the situation calmed immensely. With the help of the gentleman I had aboard we rigged a couple blocks and wrenched the dinghy back up and secured it with four different lines, so we could limp into harbor and I could rig a new bridle for the back part of the dinghy to be raised.

It took all of 10 minutes to rig the new bridle and we were back to having fun. I could have down this out there, but with the winds, waves, and only being 10 miles away it made sense to do it once it was calm in an anchorage. I now have time and I am going to look into wire lines to solve the chafe issue, which I of course will write about if I go that  route.  

Turns out the worst part of all this was that my brand new week old sandals USE to be in the dinghy. Haha. I am now waiting on my  new, new sandals to arrive so I don’t have to wear my snorkel booties the very few times I wear footwear at all, but that is a whole different story.

Blog - DInghy Davit

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