What was shaping up as a sweet day with 15-20 knot seabreeze and head high spilling swells soon turned to crud as a dodgy mast base parts and I'm left with my first swim to shore. Next mast base is gunna be bullet proof, as the 45 minute swim sucked big time.
What a pain. I broke a mast at box about 900m from my launch. My swim took over an hour. But it is a swim of misery on so many counts: meanwhile everyone else is planing around having a great time, unaware of your predicament, being bummed about broken gear and the fact that a rif that is broken is so miserable to swim with. I feel for ya Phil.
Hey Sean, not sure what it's called, but it was right where the pin connects to the base plate. Basically inside was rusty and the pin came out cleanly. I will never buy a cheap Ebay mast base every again. The base was only 8 months old...
Bararian, everything you just said rings true. But you forgot to add some shark paranoia. I was 20 minutes into my misery before one of my mates spotted me. All good though, now all my gear is ship-shape so hopefully won't have to go through that again in a hurry. :)
The best uni joint you can afford is money well spent, I've sill got my Chinook, not the most technical, not many special features, but strong.
Select to expand quoteshoodbegood said..
The best uni joint you can afford is money well spent, I've sill got my Chinook, not the most technical, not many special features, but strong.
+1 Chinook 
At least it was sunny.. 
I've experienced a couple of breakdowns far from shore and find it easier if you de-rig and paddle in.
Good to hear that you made it back in one piece!
Tough luck Phil.
You get that horrible feeling in the guts that this is not going to be good when you break something a fair way offshore. Thinking about sharks etc. is not productive, just trying to keep calm is the main issue.
Like Barbarian, I too have had gear issues, torn a wave sail almost in half at the Box, Umina and was continuously smashed by waves and sucked back to the same spot by an outgoing tide for 20 minutes before I managed to get to a sand bank and finally got back to shore. Top half of sail was almost useless.
Spewed up plenty of water when I finally got back in. Luckily it was an onshore wind.
I use Chinook mast bases/unis as well and they are good.
My Chinook mast extension let me down last month. The ring just broke off, sail/mast and boom all went straight down sending me in nice catapult.
No way I could sail the 7.9 back to the beach (34 extension), all cams had popped and the sail looked like a rubbish bag...
3 km out at sea I was quite happy to have my waterproof phone with me.
Rang a friend who called the coast guards. They collected me 45 mins later, me slowly drifting and like Phil thinking of sharkies and keeping my feet on the board :-).
That 100$ phone is the best investment I did, I was alone that day (week day) and no one was at the beach.
Still recommend Chinook !! Got a new ring for free.
As for de rigging in the water, that's what I did when they launched their dinghy to pick me up. Works fine except for large cam sails, the blessed thing started sinking as soon as I removed the mast. If I didn't have the inflatable to hold on I would've lost it.
Starting to hear some horror stories, which is great
...as it is giving me some good ideas in future.
Thankfully I could semi "sail" the board in with the rig laying across the board. I clamped the harness line to the front foot strap, and it actually sort of sailed me in. Still took 3/4 of an hour, and the odd set would clean me up but it worked ok, even made some ground cross wind to where I launched. Still felt like a tuna flavoured shark biscuit...
Theory now is re-check all gear, (just replaced all extension and boom ropes yesterday) and only sail where I can swim or walk home from- and only sail the ocean in onshore winds. Oh, and buy a Chinook mast base
glad all ok Phil. Rotten to be swimming instead of sailing. It is a fitness test for sure!
I've had many 'swims' in from Long Reef and from way out off Little Makaha. My longest was
about 80 minutes a few years back, it was getting dark & you try not to think about noah's
but can't help it. Cops turned up but at that stage I was only 150m off the beach.
Some sailors replace uni etc. each year, might be a little extreme, depends how much you sail
and in what conditions.
There is a post in the SUP section about paddle breakage (like masts) - worth watching.
Tie mast base to front footstraps and body-drag (like water-starting) all the way to shore. You can even go upwind.
That method saved me plenty of times when rope-uni joints failed (Bombora circa 1985?).
Select to expand quoteseanhogan said..
That 100$ phone is the best investment I did, I was alone that day (week day) and no one was at the beach.
Sean, what phone did you get? sounds like we might all do well to have one.
thanks in anticipation.
I used to have the sony ericsson "Active", lost the blessed thing in the water 
am now using a cheapo "Haier" w718, it's got a built in gps too so I can record my sessions
and post them on ka72 :-)
Select to expand quoteseanhogan said..
I used to have the sony ericsson "Active", lost the blessed thing in the water am now using a cheapo "Haier" w718, it's got a built in gps too so I can record my sessions
and post them on ka72 :-)
gotta love the demo
yeah, that is hilarious!
i'll check it out.
thanks
Good looking and tough phone. Got to love Android phones. I love mine cheapo Technology Happy Life W7 though its not a tough little bastard like this one.
Yeh phones cost too much. i only pay bugger all for a phone and if i wreck it... well i haven't wasted too much money. Go the android
PhilSWR nice sailing mate. Winter here in the west hasn't been too great. sorry to see you crash 'n' burn. I feel your pain. I haven't ever had that issue but when i was learning on a short board i did a s**t load of swimming and taking in water and when made the beach, a lot of vomiting. Hey i can at least waterstart now. I'm now reviewing my accessories....preventative maintenance
thanks for the post
