Check your equipment - or else!

Saturday was shaping up to be the best day this year. The marine forecast was way off and winds were ESE in excess of 15 knots and building. ESE winds at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay bring relatively flat water. We left the beach and within a couple hundred yards it was really honkin' so I immediately jumped out on the wire. The boat was heeling pretty well so I told my crew to hop on out with me. With 380 lbs. on the trapeze we were still rolling with the windward hull barely skimming the surface and the leeward hull cutting the waves like a torpedo. I glance back aft where we had a two or three foot rooster tail shooting from the rudders. WOO HOO! After a three or four mile reach we were approaching a giant coal collier at anchorage. I told my buddy that when we got into the shadow of this massive ship we would likely lose a lot of air and he should hop on in. He did and, as I headed up and started to swing in...SNAPPPO! I'm in the water! WTF? Having been here before I released neither the sheet rope nor the hiking stick, having the combined effect of sheeting in while turning away from the wind. My buddy is shouting for me to let go of the sheet rope before the boat goes over but, five miles from shore, I'm not letting go of anything until I have a handful of something else. I eventually grab the stretch righting line and scramble aboard. As we are drifting to within a couple hundred feet of this huge tanker's sonar dome we get a little wind in the jib and pull away. I take a good look at the trapeze lines, dog bones and wires and everything seems to be intact. Huh? Next I look down at my spreader bar and see a little rusty nub where my trapeze hook used to be! Now this Gul harness is only four or five years old but the spreader bar is chrome plated which, it seems, has hidden a fair amount of cancer. I go over the equipment on the boat pretty well before each voyage. Never thought to take a good look at my own harness though. A word to the wise.....

Sorry to hear that. Luckly everything turned out ok for you. I was out there on Saturday too. It was a great sailing day! I hear sailing around those things can be tricky.
You would think eventhough it's plated it would show some sign of wear. I left out a bike under a porch with some crome plated parts (I live at the oceanfront) and I could see they all had been eaten by the weather. I tuned the bike up and when I removed those parts they just crumbled up.
But I would not think of checking that because of how it is stored.
Thanks for the tip.

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H16-Destroyed
Nacra 5.0
Pro-Angler 14

holy !@#$% thats scary as hell. I've been that close in my power boat in the fog. All i had to do was dump the throttle and get out of the way. that is way too intense for me. Equipment failure or not I will be sure to stay far away from the big boys. lucky for me the shipping lanes are 20 miles off the coast around me.

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'73 hobie 16 restored 2011
'00 Seaswirl fishin boat

You should contact Gul. I bet they will make good on the harness because they will be glad you are not sending lawyers. It is almost unthinkable they would make a part like that out of ferrous metal or send out sloppy contaminated welds. If you contact them let us know. thanks

Gul offered me a replacement spreader but now I am understandably hesitant to accept it. The spreader bar is, in fact, stainless steel but the general consensus is that there was a contaminated weld. Gul says they have had only one other hook failure - ever. A Murrays rep says they have had multiple hook failures on kite surfing harnesses where lateral loads are greater. Anyone out there using a Gul harness or spreader bar might want to inspect the weld bead around the hook for fractures or pinholes.