Tall Ship Dismasted

[Coastie04]

Just figured I'd post this, since I haven't seen anyone else. The Polish training ship Fryderyk Chopin was dismasted about 100 miles off the coast of Scilly. There were 47 crew, mostly teens aged 14-16, along with 14 professional crew. From what I've read, it doesn't look like there were any injuries and the boat was safely towed in to port by a fishing trawler.

A video is on this bbc website that shows the damage quite well as the brig is towed in.

Coastie04

[callenish gunner]

The crew was lucky that there were fishing boats in the area to haul them out ...without the assistance of these sailors this could have been a tragedy

[Coastie04]

A potential tragedy, for sure, but at least the boat was still afloat, and I didn't hear anything about taking on water. So, they would have been uncomfortable bobbing around with their newly made sea anchor, but they probably would have been OK until the tugs made it out there. The mainmast isn't in the water, so the foremast would have actually just swung the head around into the seas. Probably the best thing it could have done (besides not breaking, of course).

Coastie

[LadyBarbossa]

My goodness! How in th' devil did BOTH of them snap? Glad no injuries or lost souls. Nor any other damage. They got lucky they did.

~Lady B

[capn'rob]

Thanks to the Powers That Be that all hands were unharmed. Masts and yard arm, gaff and boom are easy to replace, All hands well, a precious gift. In the Heyday of Sail, the Great Clippers, there were fire axes by the shrouds on the rails at each mast. If a Clipper was sailing "whole Sail",all working sail, ringtails and stun's'ls, and a squall came down hard and quick. With no time to take in all in trim to topsails and staysails. With all that sail the ship would rapidly surpass its hull speed. At this point the bow wave and stern wave would continue to build as the hollow amid ship would deepen. The next phase, the ship would "Sail Under"!! It made more sense to cut away the spars, jury rig and go back to salvage what you could and coupled with the spare spars all ships carried, re-rig and carry on. They didn't invent the "Jury Mast Knot" because they thought it was cool looking. When I was a Broker I had a deal pending on a steel hulled ketch. It surveyed well and we went out on sea trial. She was a Ketch when we left, we came back, she was a Schooner!! From the spreaders up, the mainmast came down on deck. The mizzen and staysail were still set and she kept sailing! The buyer says "if he'll fix the mast, the deal's still on!" I was dismasted by a railroad bridge on a friends boat years ago. Come to think of it, I've been dismasted a lot. Fortunately Not Offshore! Smallboat racing and pitchpoling Hobie Cats will add to the ranks. Today I prefer comfort to speed.

[Coastie04]

Lady Barbarossa: Since there are many stays connecting the two masts, when one comes down the other is usually pulled down as well. This happened also on the schooner Pride of Baltimore II when she was dismasted a few years ago.

As far as dismasting, I was completely dismasted in a 35' sloop a number of years back while racing for the Coast Guard Academy. Definitely dangerous stuff, and quite scary. Of course, once the rig is secured (or in my case, cut away so that the end of the mast wouldn't act like a battering ram against the hull due to the wave action), then it's just an uncomfortable motorboat ride or tow in a very stiff boat. I think the axes were next to the rigging more in case something did happen to the masts, that they could be cut away, rather than cutting away the standing masts. That's what taking in/reefing sails is for. Worst case scenario, let fly the sheets, which will essentially neutralize the canvass and let the sail flog itself into pieces. You'd loose the sail, but the rigging would be intact, and new sails are a lot less expensive than a whole new rig. I could be wrong in this, but I've never heard a story of a clipper ship actually cutting away undamaged rigging in even the worst squalls.

Coastie