I have recently returned from a mile builder trip in and around the Canary Isles and Morocco where I was a member crew. During the trip we had two fairly significant rigging failures which I believe were caused by the sail settings and sail configuration.

At the times of failures, the sail configuration and sail settings were at the express direction of the Skipper (to the extent that he personally re trimmed the sheets) despite a number of disagreements with various members of the crew including myself.

Having searched on line for similar failures I have been surprised that there does not appear to be reports of similar occurrences and so I thought that I would seek the advice of others more knowledgeable than myself
We were sailing a 2000 (year) Jeanneaeu Sun Odyssey 40 with Harken winches. The rigging had just had it’s annual inspection by a professional rigger and was deemed to be in good order.

Incident No 1 - Shortly after changing tack and while beating upwind into a 3m sea – wind speed between 25 and 30 knots, the wire strop that connects the jib or foresail to the halyard snapped. The jib was reefed with probably about 50% showing, the mainsail had two reefs in it as we were sailing at night. The strop which was made up from 8mm stainless steel wire was in good condition and had been refitted the day before when it was moved from the foot of the jib to the head of the jib.

The strop failed because the wire was pulled through the crimp. The crimp was well formed. The wire showed obvious signs of distress where it pulled out. This suggested the strop failed simply due to the load put on it.

The jib sheet car was pretty far back on the traveler (towards the stern) and the jib sheets were tightened to a point they were slipping on the winch (low ratio with 3 turns on the drum).

I suspect that the force being exerted through the sheets was such that with the car being well back on the traveler the force was transferred to the top of the sail and was such that it caused the strop to break, but I cannot find anything on line which can support this theory or not.

Incident No 2 - While beating upwind, close hauled with only the Genoa up into a 3m / 4m sea – wind speed between 30 and 35 knots the top spreader on the windward side of the mast collapsed or rather deflected downwards and backwards through approx. 45 degrees. This caused the windward rigging to de tension and the yacht to be very nearly dismasted.

Why we were beating upwind, close hauled with just a full genoa up and no mainsail is another story and one that probably proves that just because you have a qualification to skipper a yacht does not mean you are competent to do so.

Anyway again I cannot find anything on line that discusses a rig failure in these circumstances.

My own thoughts are that the jib which again was tightened to a point where the sheets were slipping on the winch (low ratio – 3 turns), was exerting such an unbalanced load on the top of the mast that the mast was liable to a twisting motion which was exacerbated each time the yacht buried it’s bow into a wave. The twisting of the mast (top) caused the force being exerted on the spreader to be moved to such a degree that the spreader wanted to re align itself and once having done so allowed the rigging to slacken. This in turn increased the bending of the mast and moved the force on the spreader even further off line.

The two failures above were fairly dramatic and although unusual are probably not unique. I was surprised not to find any information on line. Any thoughts on the above would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like you have gorillas on the winch handles. The strop failure could also have been due to halyard tension. Perhaps it was pulled up nice and tight by one of your gorillas, and then someone else decided the backstay was too loose and pumped up a few thousand more pounds on that. The shock loads on the sails from bouncing around in the waves can also be impressive. Beating with just a full genoa in those conditions doesn't make sense. The sail is pulling the boat's head off, pulling you to leeward, making it difficult to steer and - as you suggest - subjecting the rig to heavy shock loads on just about every wave. How much sheets slip on a winch depends upon too many variables: sheet diameter, how much pull by the tailers, how much torque on the handles, the condition of the scoring on the drum...to be much of an indicator. It happens all the time in situations less nasty than you describe. Don't know if I would sail with that guy again, even if he fixes the mast which is probably quite twisted at this point. That may be why you don't find much about situations like yours: people avoid skippers like that.

The only time I was ever on a sailboat where there was a rigging failure, was on a 26 foot boat, that I was helping deliver, that the previous owner had re-rigged himself.

It bothered us when we inspected it before we left, but we stupidly decided it would hold up for 200 miles. It didn't and we were dis-masted in 30-35 knot winds, 20 miles from making it to our destination.

With the car "well back" most of the sheet load will be along the foot of the sail.
It's unlikely that sheeting hard on a 50% furled sail should give such a load on the halyard.
Could you have had a halyard wrap?
Or a bad crimp?

The spreader end should have been secured to the shroud to prevent it moving down.

It sounds by your description that the boat was driven hard into the waves, this can start the mast pumping.
Pull on the mast from main sail & main sheet could have helped preventing this situation...
Or maybe the rig should have been fitted with additional stay's to stabilize the mast.

does that boat having running backstays?

Im not a fan of single sail heavy weather sailing...while not exreme 30-35 knots can be a tremendous load on the mast while beating...

beating usually birngs out all the flaws certain rigs have, pumping like mentioned is a killer of rigs if not taken care of

the crimp on the wire rope that isnt all that uncommon...could be exactly what was mentioned before...someone tightened the backstay after really hammering on the jib halyard...since you were beating the thought is to tighten the backstay and keep things taught but if done after the winds have piped up damage can happen...

Im also not a fan of tighten stuff while on tension, especially beating...if it comes down to it id much rather run off the wind...even drop sails if need be, and however uncomfortable it may be to do this with no sails up...haul up sails again after tweaking rig and keep on going

sometomes its hard to get a little lull in waves and pounding to trim the jib sheet for example without it going awol but luffing into the wind a bit to ease pressure works well sometimes

again dependant on wave pattern and how often you are pounding each wave if you will

imrpoper sheet angle is a killer of sails, or jib in this case not necessarily the halyard per say...you could of easily ripped the foot of the sail if you kept hauling in...having said that was the leech flapping all around and ballooned out? if so I understand why crew was unhappy

regarding the spreader was it tied in? boot? tape something to clamp spreader to rigging?

I like bootsand simple zipties or wire...

in any case in 35 knots of wind I would of much rather have a very small foresail preferrably on an inner forestay and a triple reefed or deep reefed main

a lot of people forget that rig balance is essential in order to prevent premature rig failures...cause if you load one extreme and have the other unladden you cause uneven stresses...

anywhoo

hope this makes sense

No offense to the OP intended, but his speculation as to the causes of the problems that occurred seem to reflect a limited understanding of sailing, and the blames assigned to the skipper need other justifications, if due.

For example, The results of an aft car location are the opposite what the OP speculates, the leech of the sail would be slack, and the foot tensioned, if something were to break due to this configuration, it'd be the tack...

I agree...tried to emphasize that

pulling on the foot will most likely always tear the bottom of the sail or pull a clew or tack etc...

the only cause for the crimp to fail was too much tension on the halyard to begin with exacerbated by crankinbg on the back stay or simply a badly crimped wire

A properly crimped steel cable won't fail by having the cable pull out of the crimp, the steel cable will break first. By definition your strop was not properly made.

Your spreader failure incident is a little harder to understand. Was this a permanent failure, or the spreader bent and then went back into shape? It sounds like the spreader was overloaded and may have had a pre-existing issue. Do you have photos of the spreader from after the incident?

I won't address the crimp failure more than saying that 8mm wire has a breaking strength somewhere in the 10,600 lbs range. A steady static load of 35 kts on a 2000 sf sail would be needed for that to fail. If it was new. But it's 14+ years old, so it broke. Such is life. That's fun with wire, hardly any warning before it fails.

The rig failure is another story. If the helm wasn't balanced than maybe, but that boat should've had a blade onboard and been using that. Also, you can close reach and unload the boat tremendously depending on wave action. Bottom line, don't beat up the boat unless you need to. If this was a delivery and not on a tight schedule, then it's pretty easy to sail slow at wider angles and preserve the boat.

Another note, for offshore work it's probably better to have the strop at the bottom to allow waves to pass under the sail instead of shock loading it and the hardware.