Staying Calm in a crisis:

The bow sprit turns into a battering ram in the Mid-Atlantic

We were four days out of St. Marteen on a 55' catamaran heading to Portugal with a stopover in the Azores. It was nighttime, and we had the screecher up in about 18 knots of wind on the beam and eating up distance at 12-14 knots. Of the five aboard, only the owner had been aboard before. The seas were a little choppy, but we were under control and moving well. At the end of my watch, I went below and hoped I would be able to get some sleep. As usual whenever I'm out on bluewater, I brought my PFD and tether to bed. I recommend this as an Offshore Best Practice for all. You never know when there will be an "All Hands on Deck!" call. And this was one of those times.

At around 2am, I felt the boat lurch violently and heard a commotion on deck. I grabbed the PFD, and ran aft and up into the cockpit. I could see that the screecher was in the water like a giant sea-anchor and under a tremendous strain as the huge mainsail was still trying to propel us forward. Later, we found that the halyard clutch had caused the halyard to fail, but we had bigger issues before we could spend time analyzing what had happened. When I went forward to the bow, however, I realized situation was potentially lethal. But not lethal yet.

When the screaeher hit the water, the thousands of pounds of Atlantic in it broke off the spinnaker sprit - an eight foot long aluminum "log" - and now that metal log was swinging between the two hulls like a battering ram. So far, the tangle of lines around it had restrained it from causing any destruction, but with the current sea-state it was only a matter of time before it holed one or both of the bows. One hull being holed would not be good. But two hulls holed would be very, very bad, and if that happened there was a good chance the boat would go down.

It was clear that the first priority was to stabilize the sprit and and strap it down to the deck.

I called aft to stop the boat as fast as possible, and explained that the immediate issue was not the spinnaker in the water but the sprit swinging back and forth like a shiny wrecking ball. My heart was racing, but I have learned that panic never helps solve the situation causing the panic. Adrenalin helps, sometimes a lot, but panic just makes things worse. And panic is catchy. One of the crew, Derya - a Turkish licensed mariner and highly experienced - came forward and we devised a way to get a line around the sprit and winch it aboard over the trampoline. With that accomplished, we could turn our collective attention to the submerged sail. It took all five of us over an hour to free the sail from under the boat (fortunately we were able to do this without going over the side.) Surprisingly, there was barely any damage to the sail. A few days later after the sail was thoroughly dried, I was able to patch it with the sail repair materials we had loaded on board in preparation for the for the 4,000 mile transatlantic.

After the crisis was over, and the adrenaline had worn off, I reflected on my own reactions and the reactions of the crew. Nobody lost their shit. We communicated well, coordinated well, formed a plan and executed it. Nothing was really damaged other than the sprit, nobody was hurt, and if anything, the situation had really forged us into a tight-knit crew. We had more confidence because of the problem, not less.

Through the miracle of Starlink, I was able to research welders in Horta (our first destination in the Azores), send him pictures and measurements, and two days after we landed in Horta the sprit was back on and better than new. (We had him add some reinforcements.)

Thankfully, that was the worst moment of the entire trip, and it was probably one of the top 5 most scary moments of my sailing (strike that) ENTIRE life.