Troubleshooting problems with your rig
Bruce Jacobs is Managing Director of Rubicon 3, specialists in adventure sailing holidays with routes that include the Arctic and the Caribbean.
Rigging is a dark art and no one will ever convince me otherwise. I have yet to meet two riggers who agree on anything – and there is no manual to read up on. It is a world of angles, tension, loads, corrosion, metal fatigue and, most of all, opinions. Ask your surveyor, rigger and insurance company a question about a rig and you’ll see what I mean.
It is perhaps no surprise therefore that the rig ends up being one of the most commonly overlooked areas on a yacht with regard to maintenance, even though it should be near the top. With Rubicon 3 yachts sailing high up in the Arctic or far out on the oceans, rig condition is something we obsess about.
For many sailors, however, the first time they really think about their rig issue will be when they are at sea and things start to go wrong.
Many years ago, I was delivering a 50ft Beneteau across the Tyrrhenian Sea from Corsica to Sicily. With only two of us on board, we were short-handed but expecting no more than a Force 6.
As is not uncommon in this area in early autumn, a mini weather system came through and things quickly got difficult. As we tried to reduce sail, the roller furler jammed. A nasty situation was made worse as the autopilot was overwhelmed by the now 40-knot winds and big sea state.
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The decision was made to drop the sail, so we fully unfurled it (quite something in these winds) and began to
