How we got in this predicament: We have just returned from a trip to Puerto Rico and have dropped anchor in the bay in the Dominican Republic. Cory and I roll the sagging mainsail into itself and fasten it around the boom with sail ties. We tuck the whole thing into the sail cover and fasten it with the ties that are attached to the cover. Then we put up the awning we are so fond of. We learned from the last time we were here that the awning is the most stable and taut when we use the boom, raised up a little with the topping lift, as a “tent ridgepole.”
Dorin has been rummaging in the port sail locker.
“Cor, I want to try a smaller jib. Why don’t you start taking that one off?”
Cory lifts the billowing sail out of his way so he can kneel at the stay, but it still envelops him to the waist. He pulls back the spring loaded fastener and slips it off the stay. Then he feels along the edge of the sail, pushing yards of sail cloth out of the way, to find the next one. He has six undone when Dorin calls to him.
“Never mind, Cor. This sail isn’t in as good a condition as I remembered. We’ll keep that one. What do you say we head for shore? You guys must be hungry.”
Cory stands up to shake out the sail, so he can start re-attaching it.
“Never mind that now. Just hank it on any old way, temporarily, to keep it from blowing off the boat.” In a minute, the sail is secure enough that we can leave for lunch.
Then we leave for lunch ashore and a two-hour motorcycle tour before returning….
Late in the afternoon, Cory and I are lounging under the awning, reading, when Dorin bolts up the stairs letting out a string of swear words that is uncustomary of him, unless it’s a crisis.
“We’re dragging anchor! Backwards!”
“Are you sure?” I look around, but everything seems the same, though it’s hard to tell, since we swing on the anchor with the tide. Though the tide is only a foot or two at most, we are not in the same place, relative to other boats, as we were even a few hours ago.
“Yes, I’m sure! Cor, let’s pull it up and drop it again and see if we can reset it.” Dorin yanks on the chain, and it comes up too easily. Obviously it was no longer buried in the mud. He hauls it hand over hand while Cory lays out the chain on the foredeck so it won’t get tangled. When the muddy anchor is up to the bowsprit, Dorin throws it out, away from the boat, and down it goes with the chain clattering across the bowsprit, rapidly playing out.
Dorin visually lines our boat up with others and landmarks.
“Still dragging. And there are boats behind us now.”
I notice what I hadn’t before: a couple of boats have swung on their anchor lines, so they are more or less in the direction we are dragging. Even if we miss the boats, we’ll be aground in the mud flats.
“We’ll have to get the sails up and sail it forward. Hurry! We only have a few minutes.”
When the awning is up and draped over the boom, the mainsail can’t be raised. Cory pulls out his rigging knife, I grab a kitchen cleaver, and we slice all the lines holding the awning. While I pull it together and toss it below, Dorin yells, “Never mind the main now. Cory, raise the jib!” Cory jumps up to the mast and unwinds the halyard. I run toward the bow to see if I can help.
Dorin is at the tiller trying to steer between the boats. We pass them going backwards; at the mast, Cory winches up the jib halyard as fast as he can. When it’s halfway up, I can see it’s snapped onto the stay all wrong. Cory can also see; in alarm we glance at each other, remembering how he randomly snapped on the bottom of the jib earlier in the day.
Knowing it has to be fixed, Cory releases the halyard, and, on the foredeck, I start pulling the sail down the stay.
“Haul up the jib!” Dorin yells from the cockpit, because he hasn’t seen the problem.
“I have to fix the jib. It’s all screwed up!”
“We don’t have time to fix it. Just get it up!” Dorin, who never yelled once in the stormy Atlantic, is screaming now.
So Cory rapidly winches it up, and I can tell he’s annoyed. When the head of the sail gets halfway to the top, the problem is clear. The jib is bunched together, overlapping itself, and while it’s snapping in the wind, it cannot fill. The bottom of the sail doesn’t come even close to the bottom of the stay.
Our speed moving backwards seems to be increasing. I know we need some forward power immediately, so I jump on the house and move toward the boom so I can undo the sail cover. “I’ll put up the main,” I yell. The wind is now screaming, and the jib is flapping and cracking against itself.
“No, we don’t have time to put up the main. Take the helm. We’ve got to get the jib fixed.” He runs forward, I jump into the cockpit, and he meets Cory at the forestay, where they pull the sail to the deck and undo and redo the fasteners.
The loosened halyard, no longer cleated off at the mast, is now blowing in the wind from the top of the mast. Dorin sees the line blowing wildly out away from the boat and grabs the boat hook. He reaches out and manages after several attempts to wind the flailing halyard around the pole and pull it in. With the halyard in his hand, he jumps to the top of the house and, winding it around the winch, cranks up the jib with the winch handle. He cleats the halyard off and runs along the starboard side deck to the cockpit so he can steer. He cranks the jib sheet tight and the sail fills.
“It’s not going to work on the other tack!” Cory yells. “The port sheet is not attached!”
I see what he means. The only line attached to the clew of the jib is the starboard sheet. I check the port side deck and there it is, lying impotently idle. I grab the forward end and run to the bow.
I hand the sheet to Cory, but he can’t reach the clew point of the sail because it’s outboard now and under pressure.
“Let the jib go!” I yell to Dorin. He immediately unwinds it from the winch in the cockpit, and I grab at the clew, but the sail is now flapping in the wind and flogs me about the face and head. Cory is holding the end of the sheet between his teeth. He leaps and grabs the corner of the sail with both hands, pulls it in, and we wrestle it into submission enough so he can attach it with a bowline knot faster than I have ever seen him do it. It doesn’t look right to me, but what do I know. I still can’t tie a bowline without a tutor standing by.
Dorin yells, “Hurry! We don’t have any time left.”
“Tighten the jib!” I yell back.
I hear the whir of the winch, the starboard sheet tightens, and the jib pulls on the starboard side.
We are finally moving forward.
Whew, crisis avoided, I think. Now we can go on the other tack.
Dorin yells, “Goddamnittohell! I won’t be able to control the jib on the other tack. The port sheet isn’t threaded through the side block.”
I run to the cockpit, and he hands me his end of the sheet, the other end of which Cory has just fastened to the jib. Back at the port mid-deck, I thread it through the block.
Dorin screams, “No, the other block. No, first, over the lifeline. No, behind the shroud. No, it goes over the lifeline, behind the shroud, under the lifeline and into the block…yes, that’s right…no! This block back here!” I run the end of the sheet back to him. He winds the sheet around the winch and pushes the tiller across. The jib comes over to the other side and Dorin winches it in. The bowline knot, hastily tied, lets go. The jib fails, flapping around, not pulling at all.
“Ke-rist!” Dorin yells.
Cory sprints to the useless jib, picks up the line and, as he pulls on it, Dorin releases the tension. Cory rapidly re-ties it to the clew with a bowline knot, taking an extra second to be sure he’s got it right. He swings his arm over his head to let Dorin know he can winch in the jib.
I sense imminent crisis and look up. We are headed at a boat, and if we are lucky, an impact will be a sideswipe, a glancing blow, but possibly damaging. Cory leaps on the house and down to the deck, landing at mid-ships on the starboard side to fend us off. I follow him. The owners of the yacht, looking alarmed, are at mid-ships also and ready to push us off, if necessary.
The only way to avoid this collision is for Dorin to tack immediately. With only one wrap around the winch, he pulls on the sheet hand over hand as fast as he can. We swing around on the other tack in the nick of time.
“Sorry!” he yells to the boaters, who wave cheerfully at us as if this were an ordinary occurrence. The guy pantomimes wiping sweat from his forehead and shakes it off his hand. “Whew!” he yells, but he is smiling.
Now we are headed toward another boat and it’s clear, since the wind is coming right at us, we will have to tack back and forth to keep moving and wind a path between boats.
“Put up the main,” Dorin yells. Together, Cory and I untie the cover and yank it off. He starts untying the ropes that bundle the mainsail while I dash to the mast, ready to winch up the sail. The main sheet is already wound around the winch and cleated off. I uncleat it, but when I reach for the winch handle, it isn’t in the holder. I’m astounded. I unwind the sheet from the winch and try to pull the main up by hand, but it moves sluggishly only about four feet. I’m just not strong enough. Suddenly, Cory is there and grabs the sheet above my hands and pulls as hard as he can, hand over hand until the top of the main is as high as it will go. He wraps the end around the winch a couple of times and cleats it off.
With the extra sail power, after about ten minutes of zig zagging, we are clear of the anchored boats in the harbor.
