after sailing for hours in 20-25 (double trapped).. after being parked in the Lea of an island for about an hour.. we were just about to pull off when my crew freaked out and jumped on my dangling side stay. my friends all helped hold the stay as we tried to secure it... no go... we had to drop the mast and i was towed in... it seems that after 15 years.. the side stay (chain plate) gave way.
upon inspection ... it corroded where the water puddles on it and it was 60% (est) gone.
I was extremely lucky that i had taken some pictures of the inside of my friends Mystere hulls when he had to do surgery and i had a good idea what i was dealing with.
I thought i had to go through the deck to access it... but amazingly my friend was able to go through my bow ports (after cutting a hole in an internal bulkhead) with a 4' pole with a wrench taped to it. He was able to get the wrench on the nuts so i could unscrew the bolts from the outside.
we were able to remove the side stay assembly (just a chain plate with a "T" welded to disperse the loads with a ball-peen hammer (it hurt me deep to hit my boat)
upon further inspection.. the other side was cracked as well and we removed it.
Now to get new ones made and then we will see if we can be smart enough to get em back in without more surgery (decks).
THE MORAL of this story is:
check your chain plates for cracks. This could have just as easily happened parked on the beach... and who knows who would have been parked/standing withing 30' of my boat when it came down...
