At the end of my last instalment, we were about to leave Iquique in northern Chile bound for the Galapagos, a passage of 1700 miles. We had victualled with food and Chilean white for several months and our consequent boat speed was heartbreaking. I kept looking over the side to see if we had picked up a line, only to realise that we were really that slow. Still, we dined well!

We left Iquique on 23 January. The first few days were uneventful except for close encounters with fishing gear – one day I had to hop over the side to cut a line away from our prop. A day later I was roused from my book as it became apparent that we had come to a grinding halt. A glance astern at the enormous fishing net – complete with a fine haul of fish – attached to our towed generator clarified matters. We were lucky not to lose the turbine, and duly took the hint by stowing it for the rest of the passage.

Then, sadly, we had a bad day. First, to my disgust, the SatC died again (it had previously failed in the Atlantic and required a new antenna – on this occasion, the fault later proved to lie with the PC). I was just contemplating whether to cross the Pacific without it when Theresa called me on deck at 0400 with the words “...and bring the white torch!”. We are careful of our night vision, so I concluded that this was probably not good news. As it turned out, the mainsail outhaul car had called it a day. It was not under stress at the time, so must have been tired out by the undoubted hammering it took in the South Atlantic. A little later I was below with the PC, trying to persuade the SatC to stop sulking, when the ARCS dongle snapped in two. Our day was nicely rounded off when the spinnaker tack line somehow managed to catch around the lower forward nav light, leading to its demise.

We decided to divert to Salinas in Ecuador, about 500 miles east of Galapagos, in order to sort things out. Although the marina is popular among cruisers, particularly for hauling out and leaving the boat, we did not enjoy it that much. It was quite expensive, stiflingly hot in the windless basin, and its manicured grounds something of an anachronism in the surrounding area. It took us about four weeks to get ourselves shipshape again, during which time we took a short trip inland to Guayaquil and Cuenca. Guayaquil was not really our cup of tea, although the Parque Bolivar was a treat, overrun as it is with dozens of ancient-looking land iguanas. We even saw a red squirrel (which was probably horrified to find itself in Ecuador!). Cuenca was fun and, being at altitude, pleasantly cool, but we had been spoilt by the more imposing towns of Peru (see Flying Fish 2006/1) and were relatively unmoved.

Villamil was a cracking stop. We saw all the wildlife one could wish for, including our fifth species of penguin since leaving England, flamingos and boobies, iguanas of both the seafaring and the landlubbing variety, plus of course the famous giant tortoises. However, our favourite moment was snorkelling further round the coast, when we came face to face with two female sea lions. I dived down a few feet to get close to them and we circled each other slowly, only a couple of yards apart – the sea lions without fear and quite curious.

Now that our long stay in Spanish-speaking countries was at an end it was time for me to fulfil my side of the deal which Theresa and I had made before setting off – that she would learn and speak Spanish, while I would dust off my execrable French. I viewed this development with some trepidation and seized the opportunity of inviting a French couple on a neighbouring boat around for dinner, in order to regale them with a few well chosen words. Although we had a fine evening, it soon became apparent that my phrases were not having the desired effect. I tackled this by drinking some more wine and then repeating the same phrases at a higher volume, which seemed to do the trick.

We left Isla Isabela on 2 April for the 3000 mile passage to the Marquesas. The SE trades were several degrees south of us and we first had to cross through a trough (which we learned on the radio extended for thousands of miles) and its associated squalls. We made good progress nonetheless, all the more so when we reached about 10°S and picked up reinforced trades of around 25 knots. This was despite our abysmal boat speed for a given wind strength, which I suspected (rightly, as it turned out) was due to marine growth. If anything, our old and tired Argentinian antifouling seemed to encourage marine life of all varieties to take up residence. There was a high swell though, and going over the side to clean the hull was not practicable.

Twenty hours later, at 0200 (isn't it always?), I shouted the command “Theresa, on deck!” for the first time in 17,000 miles. The port intermediate shroud had failed in exactly the same way. The middle of the mast immediately started to move out of column a total of six feet athwartships – we were obviously in imminent danger of being dismasted. We furled all sail and started to motor slowly dead downwind, although the propeller cavitated badly in the large swells and we made less than one knot through the water. We were still 1000 miles from the Marquesas – much too far to motor. However, our immediate concern was saving the rig. We set up two spare halyards as backup cap shrouds made fast to the port and starboard toe-rails, then led the spinnaker pole uphaul down to the centreline a few feet abaft the stemhead. The latter step reduced the movement of the mast from six feet to three, buying us a little time.

A few hours later I tuned into the daily SSB radio net for yachts making the Pacific crossing. These nets conventionally start with the phrase, “Any emergency, medical or priority traffic?”, but I never thought I would have to respond to that question. I gave our position, and any other relevant details I could think of, since it still seemed quite likely that the mast would shortly go over the side, taking with it our only means of long-range communication. (The SatC had failed once again, a day out of Isla Isabela.) This net proved to be of inestimable benefit. We established a four-hourly schedule devoted to our difficulty and two boats in particular rose to the occasion. Jim, a singlehanded rigger on Cheyenne, tuned in without fail every four hours, despite the effect this must have had on his sleep. His first and most useful suggestion was to replace our single line from the pole uphaul sheave box with twin lines to the port and starboard toe rails. This reduced the movement of the mast to a few inches. I was furious with myself for not thinking of this immediately, but the important thing was that we had now stabilised the rig, at least for the moment. Richard and Barrie, aboard a 55ft yacht called Lady in White, carried over 3300 litres of diesel and immediately offered to divert to our position. Lady in White also had working e-mail on board and acted as the co-ordinating boat, relaying messages to the UK and especially to Seldén, manufacturer of our mast, asking for technical advice.

Over the next few days we worked flat out to improve the jury rig and our position generally. As it was apparent that we would have to motor for a considerable distance, one of our first tasks was to decant fuel from jerry cans into our tank. This was an horrendous job as, without the stabilising effect of sail, we were rolling through more than 90°. The entire side decks (and with them the fuel filler cap) were periodically under water, so we had to tip the fuel in a bit at a time, then cover the cap before the sea reached it. We managed to complete the job without too much water getting into the tank (although we were still feeling the effects of water in the fuel many weeks later), but spilt copious amounts of fuel over the decks, which did little to lighten our mood. To add the finishing touch, a squall hit out of nowhere while we were in the middle of fuelling. I remember saying to Theresa at the time: “Don’t worry, it’s only a hobby!”, albeit through gritted teeth.

It had been clear to us from the start that the pole uphaul sheave box was unlikely to take the strain indefinitely, and Seldén confirmed this by e-mail after a couple of days. The violent motion of the boat meant that climbing the mast was unappealing, so I came up with a cunning plan. I drilled a hole through a suitable onion and made fast a length of messenger line. I then hoped to hurl the onion through the gap between the mast, upper spreader and cap shroud, then repeat the feat from forward and so lead the messenger line around the upper spreaders. We could then rig replacement lines to the toe rail and take the load off the sheave box. Unfortunately, my opinion of my throwing ability proved as wide of the mark as my aim, and the closest I came was five feet. All I achieved was to render us short of onions and leave the mast smelling like pizza. The only alternative left was to climb the mast.

The following day Theresa had a go, but was forced to concede defeat at the lower spreaders. Next, I took a turn and managed to rig a sling around the upper spreaders. The experience was not one I would like to repeat. Despite using two safety lines around the mast, I managed to get them sufficiently tangled that I had to undo them – just as a particularly vicious swell caught us. I lost my grip and swung out past the cap shrouds to the horizontal. On the way back in it was borne upon me that my prospects would be greatly improved if I could grab the shroud, which I just managed to do, reducing the subsequent collision with the mast to manageable proportions. The motion was so bad that the final bowline took me nearly fifteen minutes to tie, as every time I took a hand off the mast to tie it, I was thrown around and picked up another bruise. Theresa had considered videoing the excitement, but thought better of it when she realised that my language was leaving something to be desired. By way of a sling I used the rather smart lifting strop which I had bought in the Falkland Islands to use as chafe protection when tying lines ashore in the Chilean channels. I cannot say that I expected it to be holding the mast up.

Lady in White eventually caught up with us and a fine sight she appeared. Richard immediately transferred his Satphone to us so that we could speak to people ashore. Even this evolution caused difficulties, as he struggled to manoeuvre in the swells and the line caught around his prop. Luckily his rope cutter made short work of it. In the same bag as the Satphone, he and Barrie had thoughtfully included a ‘Red Cross’ parcel, which provided much needed light relief, together with printed copies of all the e-mails sent and received so far. Thus we discovered the cause of our predicament. The printouts included a letter from Seldén to Oyster, which had been forwarded to my father but reached him four days after we left the Galapagos. The letter basically stated that a defect had been discovered in the design of our lower spreaders which could cause the wire to fail around the spreader ends (for full text, see below). My father obviously tried to forward the information to us, only to find that our SatC was not working...

Richard and Barrie kept us company from then on, offering us fuel (which we just managed to avoid taking) and even a tow – which we declined – when we still had several hundred miles to go. Eventually, we built up enough confidence in our jury rig to set some headsail and made slow progress west, averaging about 2 knots. Lady in White acted as a backup for our radar, stationing themselves a few miles to windward at night on squall watch – if even one squall had caught us with any sail up we would certainly have lost the mast.

“We have recently encountered an incident of serious wear on continuous standing rigging at the lower spreader on a large Seldén yacht mast. The wear encountered was around our original stainless steel spreader end clamp for V-Spreaders. The incident has highlighted a potential problem with the stainless steel end clamp if the rig tuning is not correct. If incorrectly tuned movement in the intermediate shroud can cause the wire to wear around the spreader end. We have now redesigned this fitting to reduce the possibility of the problem occurring again.

Given that your Oyster is a serious blue water cruising boat, you will be well aware of the need for regular checks to be carried out on spars and rigging. I would therefore expect any wear developing on rigging around the spreaders to have been picked up as part of your regular inspections. However, given this recent problem, if your lower spreader end fittings are the same as the one in the picture below, we would like you to arrange to have them changed at the next available opportunity.”

“Subsequently, Sapphire spent several weeks in Nuku Hiva and Papeete, having the rig repaired. Seldén replaced all the standing rigging, including unaffected wires. Seldén shipped out new wire from Europe and paid for a local rigger to set up the new rig, at their cost. I would like to make it clear that I was entirely satisfied with the support received from both Oyster Marine and Seldén Mast following the failure.”

Thank you for inviting us to comment on the article written by Kevin Ruscoe, recounting his tales of sailing through the South Pacific aboard his Oyster 42 Sapphire of London. I can confirm that his account of probably one of his least enjoyable experiences is an accurate account of an unfortunate scenario of events.

Shortly before this incident it had come to the attention of Seldén Mast that yachts with continuous rigging were reporting an unacceptable degree of wear on their V1/D2 shroud, which runs continuously to deck through a spreader end designed to clamp the wire at spreader height (pictured right).

Seldén Mast’s response to this problem has been to re-design the spreader end. The new system is a better engineered solution, linking the intermediate shroud at the spreader and holding the cap shroud in a bronze seat. The upgrade will require the intermediate to be cut and re-swaged at the point it bends around the spreader, but this will ensure that any wear from the original end clamp is removed. We have proactively attempted to contact all owners who might be affected by this problem and offer them an upgrade kit. In trying to contact all affected owners we must pay thanks to the efforts made by the staff in the aftersales departments of Oyster Marine Ltd and Moody Yachts (Premier Yacht Sales). As Kevin mentions, he received his letter from us via the team at Oyster, unfortunately in Kevin’s case a couple of days too late.

We wish Kevin and Theresa all the very best with their future sailing. As always when one hears of such stories, we are humbled by the seamanship and skill that was shown in extremely difficult circumstances.