Check your shroud shackles....

[Graham W]

....otherwise your mainmast could end up over the side like this!  The tabernacle pulled out of the coach roof as the mast went over (as it is supposed to do) but got somewhat bent in the process.  All shroud shackles should be moused so that they cannot work loose.  When I inspected mine after recovering the mast, I was amazed to see that the bottom shackle on the opposite side was also very loose, so it could have gone either way.  The boat is now back at Swallow Boats awaiting repairs.

[Julian Swindell]

I've seen this happen on another boat within 24 hours of being launched. I mouse my shackles with a little cable tie going through the hole in the pin. Do the same with the shackles up at the top of the shrouds as well, because you can't check them when it is up. (Who ever thought that a good word to describe wiring up a shackle would be mouse?)

I had to talk someone out of bolting a tabernacle to a cabin top with huge through-the-roof bolts, so it could "hold the mast up if the shrouds fail". You really want quite weak bolts/screws so they pull out and cause as little damage as possible, not rip the roof off.

Hope you are soon fixed and back on the water.

[Craic]

Thanks again for the article post.Much thanks again. Keep writing. Oakden

[Graham W]

This was a case of the bottom shackle pin(s) coming loose - the shrouds themselves were fine.

[Craic]

Graham,
as also the other case was attributed to a 2010 built BR, my gut feeling tells me it is the same and single case. Maybe Guy can explain.

We hardly ever mouse, much quicker to turn the pin well tight with a shackle key or pliers, never had any loosening then. Convenient for mousing otherwise are the smallest size plastic ratchet cable ties.

[Michael Rogers]

Julian

At risk of being labelled a pedant (as well as being that junk rig nutter), I think, strictly speaking, that you don't mouse a shackle pin (I'm not sure what you do to it - 'wire it' sounds OK if a bit 'modern'). You mouse a rigging hook (which I guess is an obsolete bit of tackle anyway), closing the hook off so that nothing can slip out of it. Strictly speaking, nothing to do with ensuring something doesn't work loose. Unless nautical usage has changed, which it might have.

More pedantry - I believe 'to mouse' (as a verb) was pronounced 'mouze' by genuine jack tars. I'm looking into it. On the principle that a treenail should always be a trunnel, for auld lang syne. Anyone interested? - no? - not to worry!

Some years ago, the mast of my Heron dinghy went over the side, with damage to the mast step, when a shackle pin, which I ALWAYS checked to be finger tight before sailing, worked loose. Claus is probably right - pliers or shackle key: but even then I would want to check quite frequently. Most of the shackles I have to do with, don't have a hole in the pin-head anyway, so how would you wire (or whatever) those? That, incidentally, is why I've gone for unstayed rigs - only joking, but it is one less thing to be checking.

[Graham W]

Claus,

My incident happened yesterday (to my boat), so if there have been problems before, this is another one, and from what it sounds like, for a different reason.

I'm wondering if there is any point in having shackles on the bottom of the shrouds, if all they do is act as an eye to secure the strop for the shrouds to the deck.  Obviously the chain plates are no good as eyes because of their small size and rough edges, but wouldn't some sort of permanently secured eye bolt be better at that end?  Of course, this still leaves the problem of potentially loose shackles elsewhere, including the top of the shrouds.

Luckily, I was upwind when it happened and once I had retrieved the mast and sails from the water, used the mizzen (at 3 knots!) to sail back to the pontoon.

Graham

[Julian Swindell]

I lash my shrouds to a shackle in the chain plates with a lanyard to make it easier to rig and de-rig the mast. Once everything is set up properly, if I have to take the mast off, I just have to undo the shackles. Putting the mast back on, just redo the shackles and the lanyards are still the correct length. If you have to undo the lanyards, then it takes a while to get shroud tension etc. right again.
Regarding lanyard wear. I check mine everytime I go sailing, and they don't seem to be wearing at all. I wouldn't really expect them to because any movement is between the shackle and the chain plate. There is very little movement between lanyard and shackle. I replaced the bottle screw on the forestay with a similar lanyard halfway through last season because the screw kept working loose. The lanyard doesn't.

[Craic]

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[Jonathan Stuart]

I think we need to "bump" this topic to the top of the forum again.

While at Sail Caledonia I noticed a BRe where the shackle that attaches the jib's drum furler to the jib boom (and hence the jib forestay) had worked open. The pin was entirely out of its thread and was 1/4 way across the shackle. The shackle was bending, causing the gap to open further and the pin to bend upwards, and the furler wasn't far sliding off the pin. The consequences for the BRe's long carbon mast to come down while sailing or while at a busy quayside could literally be deadly. I checked the other BRe at Sail Caledonia and that didn't have a cable tie on the shackle that attaches the jib boom to the stem head but that shackle had not worked loose.

Both owners believed their boats had come from the yard like this. So we all need to check on delivery of new boats, and periodically thereafter, that all critical shackles are tight and preferably secured with a cable tie or wire. This needs to include the shackles above and below the jib boom and those at the top and bottom of the shrouds.

[Graham W]

After my experience on Lake Bala (see photos in the first posting at the top of this thread), I'm paranoid about this.