When stuff happens…
If you spend enough time on the water, stuff happens. And when you sail solo like I do, “stuff ” can take on a new and scary meaning— like when my top-down furler drum got freakishly fouled by the asymmetrical spinnaker’s tack line in a sudden knockdown wind, or when I was transiting the Chesapeake Delaware Canal at night and the railroad lift bridge lowered without an audible or visual signal, threatening to decapitate my mast.
In the first case, I was able to cut the jammed line and free the furler before charging into shallow water. In the latter, I had the presence
