We had raised the sails and were getting ready to cut the engine off when we heard a loud snap and the boom suddenly flew across the boat and out across the water. We both paused, looked at each other and then sighed. What could possibly have gone wrong now?! I like to think that this is a testament to our getting used to boat emergencies, as neither of us panicked - but most likely this is a sad statement about our boat getting older and us getting used to things breaking on a regular basis. Either way, we suddenly had a big problem. We quickly diagnosed that the problem was that our traveler block pin had snapped - the traveler keeps the boom in place and keeps the sail from flopping all over the boat, it also keep the boom pulled forward so that wind stays in the sail. At this point, the boom was just flapping about in the wind, doing no good whatsoever.
I took the helm and Brad went out to tie down the boom - all done in the pouring down rain. Koa and Moo were freaking out and were both frozen in the cockpit - Moo was curled up in the corner getting soaked and Koa was sitting right in the middle of the companionway, wanting to go downstairs but too terrified. It was a hot mess.
We got the boat under control, took down the sail and Brad secured the boom. While we limped along under motor, Brad scrounged around and found a spare block and was able to replace the necessary parts. But not completely, so we were not able to use the main for the remainder of the day.
Once the rain stopped, we released the jib and motor sailed our way to Cumberland Island, Georgia. All in all, not our best sail, but certainly not our worst either! We were happy to have the anchor down, Brad was able to finish fixing the traveler and tomorrow we will go see what Cumberland Island has to offer.
**Although this is the replaced traveler block, here is a picture of what it looks like, where it goes on the boat and the pin that sheared off:
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