3885 was a beautiful boat. In what must have been a labor of love, Stu had spent a documented 400 hours rebuilding it, after buying it for a few hundred dollars after seeing it by the side of the road. Much of the woodwork, including the deck and rails was new. Some of the fittings were upgraded. The boat had been completely repainted a gorgeous Corvette red. The $2000 paint job was not the only significant restore cost, as Stu had another $2500 on materials documented. At the WRSC open house in 1994, it was frequently mistaken for a new boat. Recently, Stu built a new rudder, installed a new tiller, rigged a modern twing system, put in spectra lines, and so on. After completing a race - Saturday's second - Stu and Beth decided one race was enough. They capsized on the way in. It appears that the bow tank leaked, and water got into it after the capsize. After getting the boat upright, Stu and skipper Beth Wieser thought they could sail in. They made it part way, but the boat was increasingly difficult to sail (probably due to the water in the tanks), and capsized again. Soon after, they were unable to right the boat. Being in shallow water about 200 yards off shore, the mast must have stuck in the mud.
About this time the mast must have broken, right at the spinnaker halyard sheave box, just below the shrouds and trapeze wires. Without the rig tension to hold it, the mast came out of the step. The broken end jammed in the mud, while the step end pounded into the hull, puncturing a hole on one side of the mast step.
After spending some time sitting on the upturned hull until someone on shore spotted them, Stu and Beth were rescued from the now waterlogged boat, and were taken in. The boat was left anchored and marked by an orange buoy, for the night. Once ashore, Stu called his insurance company, and nothing was done while waiting for the insurance company to determine what they wanted to do.
We went to check on it Sunday afternoon after the regatta was over. To our surprise, the boat was still on the surface, though mostly submerged. The boat was clearly damaged - we could see the hole the mast had punched through the bottom - but we thought could still be salvaged. It was sickening to see the boat on the surface, but be unable to rescue it, as it was almost dark, and we did not have the equipment to salvage it properly. We did not feel that we could try to salvage the boat without the acquiescence of the insurance company; we left reluctantly. It took several days for the insurance company to decide what to do. When they finally sent a surveyor to look at the boat, he was unable to find it. The following weekend, Stu and I went looking for it. To our amazement, we found the boat, still afloat. It had been dragged by the tide about two miles south. There was another hole in the bottom, and it was sitting rather lower in the water. Only the centerboard and the bow of the upside down hull were above the surface.
I swam over to it, but was unable to assess the damage, beyond that which could be seen from the surface.
We gave the insurance company "salvager" the location of the boat based on bearings to landmarks, and left for a quick lunch. The insurance company had decided not to spend the money to carefully salvage the boat, so the salvage operation consisted of tying a line to the bow, and dragging it, full of water, still anchored, and with the rig and sails next to it in the water, some ten miles to the salvager's marina. We pulled up along side part way through the tow. The boat was almost upright, and we could see a large hole into the top of the starboard seat tank.
Stu and I were at the marina when the boat was dragged in almost completely submerged. Several holes could be seen in the tanks and hull. The rudder had been chafed badly against the hull. Being almost completely submerged, we could not assess the extent of the damage.
I returned a few days later, after the boat had been hauled out, to see it. Much of the paint had chafed off, the sails were torn, fittings ripped out, mast broken, etc.
There were three holes through the bottom, one that went through the top of the seat tank, out the side, and then through the bottom.
The mast was broken at the spinnaker halyard sheave. One shroud had chafed most of the way through, the other had pulled the shroud fitting out of the boat, destroying a magic box in the process. The new rudder was destroyed. The chafe was extensive, with paint and varnish worn off in numerous places, and erosion deep into the wood or fiberglass. The mainsail was torn all along the foot, and the jib, though in one piece, was quite mangled.
It is hard to say how all the damage occurred. We know the first hole in the bottom happened during the second capsize. I believe there were no other holes in the bottom the next day. How much of the damage happened while the boat spent the week upside down with the broken mast stuck in the bottom, and how much happened while being towed is hard to tell. I would expect the loads placed on a boat while under tow, full of water, with an anchor and a complete rig in the water all tied to it, must be enormous. I am surprised that the remnants of the rig, and the traveller - which the anchor was tied to - were still with the boat when it got to the salvagers marina.
It is not yet clear whether Stu will attempt to repair the boat, or whether it will be permanently retired.
We should all consider the implications for insuring our own boats. We should: