Dismasting

Marathon, FL
No LL

The picture I posted yesterday piqued the interest of many of you. Several readers thought it must be that it hit a low bridge. That's very possible, perhaps even likely but there are other ways for it to happen.

When I took the picture, the dismasted boat was heading North and was 40 miles away from the nearest low bridge. I should have called him on the VHF to ask what happened, but I didn't.

• He could have hit some overhead obstruction other than a bridge.
  

• Overhead wires are a frequent hazard, with our without electricity.
  
  
• One can even hit a partially extended stabilizer boom of a shrimp boat with the mast.
  
  
• A really dumb stunt would be to drive a sail boat in to a covered slip. Covered slips are like garages for power boats. I never saw one with a ceiling high enough for a big sail boat.
  
  
• I wonder what would happen if one over tightened the back stay on a racing sailboat with a bendy mast. Could it be so tight as to break the fore stay and then break the mast. It sounds unlikely but not impossible.

Libby and I heard another story about dismasting. A family, members of SSCA, were cruising the Pacific when they ran up on a reef. They had the father, mother and 3 kids aboard. The father went on deck to try to do something. Just then, the mast broke and fell on the man. It cut his leg clean off. The bottom line, the man and his family all survived to tell the story on American TV. See it here.