Remember Ray Thayer on his Brewer 60 Wild Thing? He had 3 - count 'em: 3 - roller furling headsails mounted on the giant 90' carbon spar. The boat also flew an enorous spinnaker (in a sock). This is what I remember of the story he told us in Hanalei after the finish, about his spinnaker wrap from hell during the race...
Ray, in 1996, was sailing well, Wild Thing was tracking along deep downwind in the trades, headed for Hanalei, when he had the worst spinnaker wrap he'd seen - it captured all three of his furlers leaving a big open hourglass of the kite way way up in the air. He spent several hours on deck winching on lines and working the sail to see if it would let go. It stubbornly held on. That was clearly not going to work.
Ray figured he'd climb up one of the furlers and unwrap the kite from bottom - that didn't work, he wore himself out and got banged up pretty bad as the boat rumbled along downwind with the giant main out. Ray got back to the deck and sat there for a while, trying to figure out what to do next.
He decided that perhaps attacking the problem from the middle would work, as he couldn't climb up the headstay perhaps he could swing out from the mast. He set about and climbed well up the spar on a halyard, then shoved off from the mast like spiderman on a halyard and flew out towards the furler closest to where he was was half-way up the mast. He missed the furler and came crashing back into the mast. Carbon fiber is not as soft as one might think. He repeated that a couple of times, each time when he thought he would make it - the furler would slip away just beyond reach of his fingers. Failure, plus more bruises.
Thinking there might be an even better way to get to the sail, he decided to go all the way to the masthead and from there he could then shimmy down one of the forward furlers to where the sail was actually stuck, gravity would be onn his side, no leaping from the mast required. At 90 feet in the air it was most difficult to hang on to anything what with the masthead flying all over the place, let alone try to get organized and get something done. From that vantage point he wrapped his legs around the middle furler and lowered himself down towards flapping spinnaker. He got to the kite and grabbed up the open bit, hugging a growing bundle of nylon as he descended to the main wrap. He spent quite a while working away at unwrapping the sail by wrestling it into a big pile, working the pile around the stay, and trying to hang on all at the same time, one slow unwrap at a time. Part way through he lost control of the kite, still not un-wrapped, it filled with a bang sufficient to overpower the autopilot, broach the boat, go into a chinese-gybe, and the spinnaker immediately re-wrapped itself around the furlers - only this time Ray was stuck inside as the sail wrapped around him. He hung on to the furled headsail as there wasn't much else he could do, the spinnaker had so cocooned him that he couldn't move much. He hung out there for a fair while, wondering how this was going to look when they found him. It wouldn't be good. Finally the autopilot sorted itself out and gybed the boat back. With an enormous bang the main came across, the kite eased up some, Ray was then able to work his hand into his pocket and retrieve the knife. From what I recall he killed the spinnaker right there on the spot, eventually lowering himself down the headstay to the deck and bringing with him the halyard, both clews, and the head patch.
If anyone in the Seattle area knows Ray, it would be wonderful to hear the original story again.
- rob/beetle
