Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Worse Things Happen At Sea

8 comments:

meech said...

Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse. Do you think this is a bad design?

Tillerman said...

It was certainly not the best design feature of the Laser. But this pair of blocks have survived a lot of hard Laser sailing over almost 20 years.

It amazes me to think that my ability to sail my boat (and get home safely) depends on this tiny little piece of metal not breaking. And it has done its job for so long.

R said...

That's something that can be easily lashed together with a spare clew tie-down. I always sail with among other things a knife and a few feet of small spectra.

Tillerman said...

After thinking over the incident today R, that's exactly what I was thinking I should have been doing. I could have fixed the problem on the water with some spectra and a knife (to remove 19 years of tape on the block.) As it was I had to stagger back to the beach as best I could and fit a spare traveler block. (Thanks for the block Judy!)

Tillerman said...

What other items do you have in your emergency kit, R?

Baydog said...

Is that really metal? I had the same damn blocks on #802, and those brummel hooks seemed to be soft, like teflon or something. In the summer of '77, I replaced all of those standard issue blocks with Harken blocks and was very proud of myself until someone told me that they were not allowed. "But they look so much cooler!"

Tillerman said...

The blocks didn't just break on their own. There was a significant amount of external imposed stress.

Splinter said...

The Harken one piece kit is a good option - not exactly cheap though.

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