The final insult was a break that we couldn't overcome. The mast broke. Greg fashioned the mast out of a 16 foot aluminum flagpole. Though it was stressed far beyond anything it was engineered for, it held up for two days under strong winds. In the end though, mother nature's force was too much for the mast, and it snapped in the middle. The ironic part is that we were sailing for shore.
Greg wanted one last day of experimentation and sailing, and I wasn't about to let him go out in the boat alone... we'd both end up stranded that way. He'd be stuck in the water, and I'd be stuck on the island. So we shoved off one last time and tried to tack upwind, to no avail. We pulled the sail down, and as Greg frantically attempted repairs, the wind pushed us slowly downwind from our campsite. We were approximately a quarter mile downwind, when I announced that it was time to bring our experiment to a close.
I suggested using the wind to our advantage by bringing the sail up one last time and harnessing the wind's power to at least get us to shore, allowing us to paddle back up to our campsite in the island's wind shadow, thus fighting the wind less.
We hoisted the sail, flew for five feet or so, and heard that final **SNAP**. We looked up just in time to see the sail and mast tumbling. It was the final defeat in our experiment.
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This blog will chronicle the journey of Greg and Dave, two lifelong friends as Dave helps Greg build a cabin cruiser made of plywood and fiberglass using a stitch and glue technique. We purchased the plans, kit and supplies from www.bateau.com.
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