It was a bit of a rough night last night, particularly around Port Stephens and Seal Rocks with gusty winds up to 30 knots and rain squalls. While we were well equipped to handle it between the four of us, I was pretty tired this morning and took a nap at 0900. I was about to get up, when Leon called out: “Marius, the boom has come down”. Chris was quickly up on deck inspecting the damage.
The gooseneck fitting had broken through metal fatigue and had snapped. As we were sailing with the wind in our back, the boom simply dropped on the deck and the boat kept sailing.
We hoisted the boom off the deck with the reefing lines and secured it before dropping the sail and securing it and the boom to “resting place” on the cabin roof.
We decided to keep going (motoring using the headsail where practical) to The Gold Coast where we’ll look for someone to make a replacement for us. All in all, I’m very pleased that we managed the situation well and feel lucky that it didn’t happen last night…
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