While writing up the log of this year's cruise in which we suffered three breakages of gear at sea - one of which was the rudder, I decided to note down some of my thoughts on emergency procedures in the "preparations" section of the logbook. The boat is a Wayfarer Class dinghy: I would be very keen to compare notes with another Wayfarer man, as I am sure there are fallacies in my ideas. Most of these refer to dealing with breakages.

1) The mast Calypso has a metal mast, and judging from previous experience with broken alloy spars, I think it is unlikely it will break, rather it will bend and be severely strained, but still in one piece with damage confined to a short t section. If damage were relatively slight the procedure would be to strengthen the damaged part on each side with 2-3" wide strips of aluminium sheet that we carry on board for such a situation. The sheets could be in two layers, and attached to the mast with self-tapping screws. If the mast were severely damaged, the boom crutch (used when rigging the tent) could be lashed as a splint. The problem is the luff groove, as the lashings would prevent the mainsail being hauled up. This could be solved by cutting slots in the luff groove sides as shown so that the luff rope in the mainsail could pass over the lashings. These slots would weaken the mast further.

A more practical solution is to rig the mainsail loose-luffed with the main halyard taking most of the strain. This would put more strain on halyard and mast (increased bending moment and unstable longitudinal pressure), and give the sail a poor set, but would allow us to make a quicker job on the mast. We could alleviate the disadvantages by making a hole in the sail just behind the luff rope, through which a shackle would be passed to put a noose around the mast in Norfolk Broads gaff rig style. This lashing could only be done below the spreaders, as otherwise sail hoisting would be impossible.

We carry no tool capable of boring a hole much larger than ⅛” so our method of repair is limited to screwing and lashing. I had no intentions of shortening the mast (although if pressed we could) particularly if breakage occurred in the most likely place – just above the kingposts due to failure of shroud, bottlescrew or other rigging fittings. Shortening the mast would cause complications with shroud shortening, gooseneck and halyard fittings. The bottom of the mast would take relatively little strain once the faulty rigging had been repaired. Also, repair at the mast step would be easier with no luff groove to worry about.

However, a repair of this sort would take between one and two hours in anything of a sea - more if there were any unforeseen difficulties, and as we would be within 10 miles of the coast most of the time - probably with a strong sou'westerly turning it into a rocky lee shore, we could drift up to three miles (allowing for a one knot drift under the drogue, and surface drift) and be carried a long way off course by the tidal streams, so might need a more immediate method of propulsion.

Paddles would be useless in anything above force 2-3; we do not carry oars which would be more effective, but one would make negligible progress rowing into a force 4 headwind and anything of a sea (Atlantic rowers never row into a headwind - even a force 2!) We thought of rigging the boom as mast, genoa jib as loosefooted mainsail and spare sheet as standing rigging. When this set-up was tried out on land, the boom was found to be too short, so the spinnaker boom would be lashed as shown. Although it has yet to be put to the test I am confident one could beat with this rig, allowing us to repair the mast under way or if impractical, to sail until far enough offshore to lie to the drogue and repair.

2) Rudder There are three possible modes of breakage: rudder head, rudder blade, transom fittings. After seeing one of Frank Dye's broken rudder heads, I thought we would be able to clamp and screw the arms of the rudder head together; sails and centreboard would be adjusted to put a minimum of strain on it. Rudder blades often break just below the head, rendering the rudder useless. If the broken blade was recovered it could be refitted on to the head. If not, as is more likely, we could cut the bottom off the centreboard and fit that as a blade. If breakage were beyond repair, we would resort to steering with the paddle lashed to the tiller pivoting in the hole below the mainsheet horse. We would have to do this if the transom fittings broke as we would not carry spares, and I feared that they would pull bodily out of the wood leaving a large hole. This would necessitate evacuation of stern locker and transference of the contents forward to raise the transom above water level.

3) Centreboard If the bottom of this was sheared off, there would be no problem as Frank Dye and others say even a foot of board is sufficient for beating. On this basis a shallow centreboard constructed from one of the after floorboards would suffice in the event of breakage of the centreboard near the keel. The floorboard could be sawn to shape, with the raised plywood board used on the stern locker screwed on the other side of the stringers to make a fairly strong, double skinned daggerboard. One could arrange for this to be adjustable in depth by using a small G clamp as a stop. If a substitute centreboard were needed in a very short space of time, e.g. beating off a lee shore, the rudder could be jammed down the centreboard case and the paddle used to steer. This is an arrangement I would prefer to try first as we would be able to keep the floorboard.