# Dismasted in the Aegean - lessons to learn



## jvlassak (Oct 1, 2009)

Here's a (not so) brief write up detailing our experience chartering from a large well-known company out of Kos in the Aegean. For the last few years we have been chartering three sailboats with two other families in various parts of the Mediterranean. This year we decided to sail in the Aegean, because of the fairly strong winds in that part of the Mediterranean and the many islands to explore.

The check-in process at Kos Marina was quite efficient - we were chartering a Bavaria 42 from 2005, a little older than we're used to, but the interior of the boat was in good condition, the boat was clean, and the systems seemed to work quite well. Our plan was to sail to Kalymnos the first day, a distance of about 20 miles, against the prevailing wind.

About three hours out of Kos Marina, we are sailing on a close haul, about 40 degrees off the wind, in 22 knots of wind. The genoa is reefed quite heavily, the main sail just a bit (the advantage of in-mast furling). We are going very comfortably at about 6.5 knots. All of us are in the cockpit; because of the wind and wave (I'd guess about four feet or so) conditions, I'd told out kids, twelve-year old twins, to not go forward.
All of a sudden - a loud bang - I look up, the sails are billowing and the entire rig is coming down. The boom crashes into the cockpit destroying the bimini and dodger, the mast goes overboard, the sails are in shreds. Everything happens really fast.

My first reaction is to make sure everyone is fine and that everybody is wearing life jackets. Then I check the mast - it's more or less parallel to the boat. I use one of the sheets to secure the foot of the mast; and pull in the backstay as much as I can. I start the engine, but don't engage the prop to avoid fouling it.

At that point I call up the base in Kos Marina to let them know that we were dismasted requesting help. I give them our GPS coordinates. They tell us they will come out to take us off the boat and that they should be there in about an hour or so. An hour goes by - we're drifting steerlessly in the channel between Kos and Pserimos - but noone shows up. We call again and they assure us that they will be there in about a half hour. An hour passes, nobody shows up. Meanwhile the wind is pushing us toward the Kos shore and we drop anchor to avoid running aground. After a half hour or so, we see another sailboat at the other side of the channel. We call the marina again and find out that they are looking for us in a Bavaria 54 at the other side of the channel - so much for GPS coordinates. After about two and a half, three hours the rescue boat finally reaches us. We manage to tie the boats together, exploding a fender in the process. Personnel of the charter company come aboard and secure the mast. We transfer to the other boat. Finally both boats motor back to base.

We reach Kos Marina after dark. The marina people are very nice and tell us to stay overnight on the Bavaria 54 - we'll figure things out the next day. The next day, the boat is taken to a yard and the mast is taken off. It is clear that the head stay parted right at the swage near the masthead. We talk to the base manager, but he just tells us to sit tight. We spend one more night on the Bavaria 54. Finally two days after the unfortunate event, we hear back from the charter company: the base manager has filed a report stating that we made a mistake that overloaded the head stay. The whole event is our fault and the company will not provide another boat. Fortunately we paid for extra insurance and we're not charged anything. A day after the event, the other two families returned to Kos Marina, so we embark on one of the boats and set off again. The remainder of the charter is uneventful and a lot of fun with winds in the high twenties, at one point hitting 38 knots.

Needless to say, the attitude of the charter company was very disappointing to us - I am not sure what we would/could have done differently and it is surprising to me that it is possible to dismast a sound Bavaria 42 in 22 knots of wind, sailing close-hauled (an accidental jibe is a different story). The maximum wind speed we clocked was about 22 knots, although one of our companion boats got 26 knots at some point. I took some pictures (below) of the head stay and it seems to me that the cable failed by fatigue, although it is difficult to know for sure without better micrographs. I have posted one of the pictures of the fracture site - it is clear to me that some of the strands in the cable failed in a ductile fashion because of overload, while others show a brittle fracture surface, possibly due to fatigue. Moreover several strands show clear signs of corrosion.

Head stay:


Failure site:


Floating without a mast:

Is this really our fault or is this a case of poor maintenance? If the latter, how do you prevent this from happening again? Is there anything I could have done differently? What lessons to learn? When I launched my own boat at the beginning of the season, I inspected the rigging very carefully and found several cracks in the swages - I immediately had all of the standing rigging replaced as I didn't want to lose my mast. Little did I know it was going to happen anyway, on a different boat.

Sorry for the longish write-up - I'm just trying to paint as accurate a picture as possible. The goal is not to malign the charter company, but to learn from the mishap. We'll never see our money again, but we're chalking one up for experience - and most important of all, nobody got hurt.


----------



## jzk (Feb 25, 2008)

Not even close to being your fault.


----------



## scratchee (Mar 2, 2012)

I don't no nuttin' about nuttin', but I can't imagine how you can bring a rig down by your own misdeed on a close haul in 22 knots of wind.


----------



## jzk (Feb 25, 2008)

Come to think of it, I can't think of a situation that it would be your fault for dismasting unless you had a knockdown. For the rig to ever come down while just sailing along, even in 50 knots is a maintenance issue, not your issue.


----------



## smackdaddy (Aug 13, 2008)

That seriously sucks. Dismasting in less than 30 knots of breeze? That's on them.


----------



## Stumble (Feb 2, 2012)

Unless there was a hydrolic backstay that was cranked on way past safety limits I can't think of anything you could have done that would have resulted in this. 

My first thought is... Remember that wire rigging is supposed to be replaced every 10 years... This is why.


I can't tell from the pictures, but it looks like there may be some corrosion on the wire fibers (dull areas) indicative of crevice corrosion, leading to a weakening of the whole segment.


----------



## Slayer (Jul 28, 2006)

Please post the name of the charter company, so we can know to avoid them.


----------



## knuterikt (Aug 7, 2006)

Some questions:
Any more pictures - the other part of the headstay?

You wrote


jvlassak said:


> the base manager has filed a report stating that we made a mistake that overloaded the head stay. The whole event is our fault and the company will not provide another boat.


Did he say in which way you overloaded the stay?

Did you during your cruise have problems furling/unfurling the sail?

Did you use a winch to furl/unfurl?

When was the last rig check done on this boat?


----------



## demirmarine (Aug 28, 2014)

There are a few questions to be placed; 1- How old is the rig 2- What sort of quality and standards of the rig materials? How well it has been maintained and looked after? How many miles it has been averaging in a year? How sewer weather conditions this boat has been going trough? Was the rig properly adjusted and tuned? etc. 
Having worked in charter operations for nine years and later owning and operating a boat maintenance company for eleven years, with out going into much technical details from my experience I can say to start with a Bavaria boat is a cheap boat due to very hard competition in boat production industry. Surely they are not using the top quality products on their production boats. I would not hesitate to say that a Bavaria boat should not last more than seven years with it's original rig, especially if it is under very busy charter operation. With reference to the Charter company's base managers report, accusing you that you have overloaded the back stay with having sailed in 22 knots of wind is sens-less. A rig of a boat should easily survive much heavier conditions than that.


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

No way any rig should fail in 20 knots. I would think any modern rig would be built to withstand MUCH higher loads. Think about what you can see in a squall. 

Charter boats see a lot more time on the water than our boats do, and as you said that area sees a lot of high winds. It sounds like the accumulated effect of a LOT of sailing hours.

On the other hand if the charter company blames you the insurance company picks up the repair tab.

It would be interesting to see what they told the insurer...


----------



## jzk (Feb 25, 2008)

No way a rig should fail in ANY wind speed. If you turtle the boat, sure, expect to be dismasted - maybe. Aside from slamming the mast into the water in a knockdown, or as the other poster mentioned, over tightening a hydraulic backstay, this is a maintenance issue.


----------



## knuterikt (Aug 7, 2006)

smackdaddy said:


> That seriously sucks. Dismasting in less than 30 knots of breeze? That's on them.


So dismasting in more than 30 knots of wind is better  ?


----------



## knuterikt (Aug 7, 2006)

jzk said:


> No way a rig should fail in ANY wind speed. If you turtle the boat, sure, expect to be dismasted - maybe. Aside from slamming the mast into the water in a knockdown, or as the other poster mentioned, over tightening a hydraulic backstay, this is a maintenance issue.


AFAIK this Bavaria does not have hydraulic backstay adjuster..
I a hydraulic backstay adjuster is installed it should no be possible to over tighten..


----------



## christian.hess (Sep 18, 2013)

aaaaaaaaaaah furlers and CHARTER companies is a great way to fatigue and diminish the lifespan of an otherwise solid rig

here is my take

the furler should of been toggled above and below, allowing for better movement of the stay and furler.

that wire does have rust stains as they probably trickled down from the SWAGED fitting up top...

most furlers these days recomend mechanical fitting and toggles both above and below.

however the individual wire strands look pretty good to my eye and decent...you have rust stains twirling around the stay but the individual wires look good.

not necessarily a wire issue. more than likely a twisting overloading and fatigue from maybe not enough movement on each axis.

do you remember how the furler was attached at the drum?was it toggled as well? was there movement on all axis?

was the furler used in 30 plus knots partially furled and cranked on in high winds before you got on? probably so...sounds like high winds thereare normal so it doesnt seem so far fetched to me to see this could happen...

especially if the charter company seems a little iffy.

how old was this forestay?

on a charter boat the forestays on furlers should be replaced every 5-7 (half normal lifespan) years not only because of the wear and tear they receive but most likely because they are abused by many sailors of different levels of experience.

at least thats what I would do if in charge of a charter fleet...

bottom line is boats are abused and respected less in general compared to privately owned...

all it takes is cranking on the furling winch in high winds with a lot of pressure to load the wires and unlay them a few times for the stay to loose a lot of strength.

peace


----------



## jzk (Feb 25, 2008)

Here is a boat getting hit by a tornado. 115mph winds. No dismasting.


----------



## miatapaul (Dec 15, 2006)

Seems to me this is just a case of the yard manager trying to save there own job. I would protest to the parent company as this could cause your insurance to go up, or prevent other charter companies to not rent to you. Likely he was worried that he would loose his job over not maintaining the boat properly. Can you imagine if you did not have the extra insurance? They may have figured let your insurance pay for there lack of maintenance, as you are not likely to protest since you were covered. 

You are very lucky that no one was hurt. Glad you were able to salvage your vacation. I hope they refunded you your money, and I would expect the next several charters to be free as well. (after complaining about them blaming it on you)


----------



## christian.hess (Sep 18, 2013)

yeah man...I would of fought the whole blame thing for sure...especially regarding your insurance

one thing is to understand what happened, another dealing with the whole blam thing...

its obvious the guy is covering himself and putting his priorities overr yours, its obvious to me you shouldnt ever charter from these guys again unless they have made well and offered something begging for your repeat business

someone else asked who is the charter company..please say so so others wont have the possibility of getting injured or in a similar situation.

companies should always try to bend over and please the customer...also be SAFE!


----------



## XPatriot (May 10, 2011)

Just be thankful no one got hurt, then you'd be writing a very different post.


----------



## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

Thing I learn is its better to have broken the mast on a charter boat that ones own boat.


----------



## MedSailor (Mar 30, 2008)

jvlassak said:


> ...we hear back from the charter company: the base manager has filed a report stating that we made a mistake that overloaded the head stay. The whole event is our fault ...


If there IS any way that an operator can overload a headstay to failure on a single trip out, I want to know about it.

Anyone? Anyone? 

It is interesting to me that it failed at the top swage. Isn't the bottom swage the more common site for failure owing to corrosion from increased salt exposure? Could repeated halyard wraps and winching have fatigued the stay over time? Is it possible to destroy a stay with a halyard wrap and winching??

It should also be noted that if the boat is a Bavaria 2005 than the rig IS less than 10 years old.

MedSailor


----------



## miatapaul (Dec 15, 2006)

MedSailor said:


> If there IS any way that an operator can overload a headstay to failure on a single trip out, I want to know about it.
> 
> Anyone? Anyone?
> 
> ...


Seems that the top swage and the wire takes a lot of abuse from the roller fuller if it is not installed right. It can untwist the wire if not functioning properly. Seems this would have been caused by many cycles of twisting the rope not just one. The rust seems strange on a 9 year old boat as well and does not indicate much maintenance was done. But I agree this was not due to operator error.


----------



## MedSailor (Mar 30, 2008)

miatapaul said:


> The rust seems strange on a 9 year old boat as well and does not indicate much maintenance was done. But I agree this was not due to operator error.


My new boat has 5 year old rigging and is from Florida. She has the same rust discoloration as the rigging in the photo. My rigger, whom I trust, says it's common in the tropics and nothing to worry about.

What kind of maintenance is recommended for this kind of thing? I thought polishing stainless was for cosmetic reasons only. Personally I don't want harsh chemicals anywhere near load bearing stainless steel...

MedSailor


----------



## christian.hess (Sep 18, 2013)

there is NO maintenance you can do at all(others may say polishing helps but not really)

if you have swaged fittings its replace as needed, these days thats 10 years or so cruising, 15 years or so daysailing

interesting all that when old boats had 30 years 40 year old rigging...hmmmmmmmmmmm rant aside

also depends on climate

(if you had mechanical fittings, most will allow a visual inspection of the terminals, replacement of cones and or fittings, and resealing)

remember most stays fail at fittings and or swages NOT WIRE

unless in furler cases where there is not enough movement, for example no toggle on both ends to allow more flex

the issues with furlers and wires is it only takes a couple of untwisting of the lay of the wires to severely weaken and stress that area of the stay...so next time you get a big hit or need to furl quick or get a jam and you hammer on the furler line guess what?

bam!

its one of the endless debates between pros and cons of furlers and hank ons

only thing you might do as preventative maintenance is manual cleaning and or freshwater rinse of the wire rigging. also periodic visual inspections up the mast

most furler manufacturers today recomend mechanical fittings both top and bottom as well as toggles...

fwiw


----------



## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

'It should also be noted that if the boat is a Bavaria 2005 than the rig IS less than 10 years old."
But is that nine years, in charter service, equal to 90 years of casual summer weekend use on a typical boat?
Every source I've seen says that if there is any rust, any meathooks (even one) on the outside of a wire cable, there is corrosion inside. Could be that Bavaria got a load of cheap or counterfeit cable in 2005. Happens to everyone, unless they own their own suppliers.
Blaming it on the charterer though...that's a really poor business move.
"Sorry for the inconvenience, glad no one was hurt, here, let us comp you with a good shoreside dinner tonight and take this big shiny whatever out for the rest of your cruise" would have been a way better idea.


----------



## knuterikt (Aug 7, 2006)

In my first post in this thread I asked some questions.


knuterikt said:


> Some questions:
> Any more pictures - the other part of the headstay?


The reason I asked is that it seems that the stay have been a victim of halyard wrap, a halyard wrap can untwist the wire and will weaken it substantially.

This is a picture taken of a damaged head stay - it was replaced immediately. It was easy to see (using binoculars) from the dock that there was a kink in the wire. 
We secured the mast with a halyard before going up.











knuterikt said:


> You wrote
> 
> 
> jvlassak said:
> ...


He should tell what you did wrong..



knuterikt said:


> Did you during your cruise have problems furling/unfurling the sail?


This can be a early warning that something is wrong.


knuterikt said:


> Did you use a winch to furl/unfurl?


If you need to use a winch - something is wrong.
I once saw a furler foil that was split 2 feet along the length at the top because the crew had used an electric winch to furl the sail...
From the Facnor manual.


> DO NOT FORCE the reefing system. Check for reasons if the sail is difficult to furl





knuterikt said:


> When was the last rig check done on this boat?


A serious charter company should do regular rig checks(after each trip?) 
There are three common causes for halyard wrap

The furler is not installed correctly
The sail hoisted have to short luff without fitting a correctly sized pendant
The sail have been furled with to much slack in the halyard

A hallyard wrap can be seen from deck level.
Last summer i moored beside this boat, wondering why the sail was not furled properly.









I soon found out - this looks like a user error.


----------



## christian.hess (Sep 18, 2013)

Exactly


----------



## jvlassak (Oct 1, 2009)

Thanks for all the comments - this has been quite helpful. I'll try to answer some of the questions that have come up in the various posts.

I do not know how old the rig was, but my suspicion is that it was never replaced. That would make it about nine year old. I don't know if the stays were properly tuned, but the shrouds at least looked fine.

It is a very windy area of the Mediterranean - when we were there, we had winds in the mid twenties most of the time, hitting more than thirty knots with some regularity. One day we stayed in port because we had sustained force 8 winds. This is fairly common, especially during July and August, when the Meltemi blows. So it probably fair to say that charter boats are subject to quite a bit of wear and tear.

As Christian and Knuterikt point out, it could very well have been a furler issue. I don't remember the furler giving me any trouble, although the furler on one of the other boats did get stuck on every revolution. I would never use a winch to furl a genoa - that's just asking for trouble. I went through all my pictures but don't have any good images of how the furler was attached, but here is another picture of the top swage that shows where the stay parted.



At first, the base manager told us that the rigging failed because we had too much sail up and that there must have been a wind gust. The area close to Pserimos is known for rather strong wind gusts, but we were mid channel and noticed only mild gusting. The next day after getting the mast out of the water, the story changed to torsional failure (which would be consistent with a furler issue). To me it looks like the strands in the center of the stay had a planar fatigue failure, while some of the outside strands underwent ductile failure, with at least one showing a clear neck. Torsional failure of a ductile (like stainless) bar tends to be planar, while a brittle solid fails at an angle of 45 degrees. I've never seen the fracture surface of a cable that failed in torsion, but I believe it could be consistent with the picture in my first post.

I am a bit concerned about how this event may impact my ability to charter from other companies - I won't charter from these guys every again. They wére willing to rent us another, brand new boat if we paid the full charter price, although they wouldn't sell us the waiver for the deductible anymore.

We originally signed a contract with the Kos franchise of one of the big charter companies with a strong presence in the Mediterranean. Any disputes would have to be arbitraged in Athens (good luck!). I'll be happy to PM the name to anyone who's considering chartering there, but the name should be fairly obvious.


----------



## christian.hess (Sep 18, 2013)

thats a classic absolute classic failure...nothing new there at all

a good installation there would of been a mechanical fitting, and a toggle...same under the drum

it failed where it almost always fails

looking at THAT pic and the firs showing the wires spread out I bet you you slightly unlayed the wires and they quickly snapped

that swage has absolutely no lateral movement to allow wiggle room if you will for a furling system

cheap, stuff there in my book

my mast for example has less surface rust on the tangs and fitting than this mast and its 42 years old...

thats just cheap low budget unthoughtfull installation rigging right there

my cents


----------



## JonEisberg (Dec 3, 2010)

christian.hess said:


> that swage has absolutely no lateral movement to allow wiggle room if you will for a furling system
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Absolutely correct... The absence of a toggle there simply boggles the mind...

One can only wonder, might that be standard practice on all Bavarias?

If so, that's UFB...


----------



## knuterikt (Aug 7, 2006)

Should have been a toggle between the head stay and the mast tang









This is a little different setup, but here is a toggle installed that's give flexing in two axis.








A better view of the toggle w/o stay attached


----------



## knuterikt (Aug 7, 2006)

JonEisberg said:


> Absolutely correct... The absence of a toggle there simply boggles the mind...
> 
> One can only wonder, might that be standard practice on all Bavarias?
> 
> If so, that's UFB...


Took this picture this summer - not my mast.
It belongs to a Bavaria that ran into a bridge...
You can see the impact damage above the headstay attachment.
The impact was so hard that the wire tore out of the swage, but the mast did not fall it was held by the furling system and halyard.

This show exactly the same headstay attachment as one the OP's charter boat - no toggle.


----------



## christian.hess (Sep 18, 2013)

cheap and unthoughtfull...Im also not a fan of those ball head fittings...especially again swaged...

you have to get the angle just right or else the fitting cracks right at the neck...they have one of the worst failure rates when compared to others

its not however so much the ball heads fault but bad installations...

a lot of racers like them though...maybe its cause they offer less windage or something...

I dont..jajaja

ps. interestingly enough you can see the backstay is toggled...how funny


----------



## denniscloutier (Mar 27, 2014)

In your photo of the broken end I can see that at least some of the wires clearly failed in fatigue. The standard indication of a fatigue failure is lines across the broken surface which look like the lines on a clam shell. On a solid member you will usually see these lines across most of the surface, which show the area that cracked before the final failure, and then you'll see a rough area which is where it finally failed when the uncracked area got small enough. In this case it looks like several wires cracked through, and then the rest weren't strong enough to hold it. 

This failure was clearly caused by fatigue, not by a single incident of over stressing.


----------



## jvlassak (Oct 1, 2009)

That was exactly my reading of the photograph as well. It is a bit tricky because the image wasn't taken under the best of conditions, but the striations do look like fatigue.


----------



## Morild (Mar 31, 2013)

If it was not hydraulic backstay tensioning, no human should be able to tighten the backstay enough to be the cause this kind of failure.
They just wanted to make sure that your insurance paid up. I suspect the verdict would have been different if you were not insured.


----------

