Demasted this weekend out in the gulf

Funny thing, I'm sailing along sans crew, and I notice the Jib is shaped wierd, (a crease like in the sail luft). Then I noticed the bridle end of the forestay was just dangling and the mast was being held up by the jib alone. I went forward to try to correct the situation, apparently the forestay shackle at the bridle had come unscrewed and the mast was basically hanging by a thread. I tried to make it more secure to make it to the beach, but the manipulation cause the whole shackle and pin to separate comepletely causing the demast. The mast base stayed intact with pin in. I hailed a jetskier over and he pulled me to shore. Luckily I had a spare pin to engage the forestay, had to sail back with furled jib though. hope I didn't stretch the jib luft and hurt the sail.

I'll use locktight and check that shackle regularly from now on.

we had our mast come down this year due to a snaped shroud....everything was fine we actually sailed back downwind using the jib as a spinaker

the mast landed on the wing seat which kept it out of the water and enabled us to sail back to shore

i use a shackle that has a hole in the pin and use saftey wire just like you do for the shround shackles on the mast.

I've had several masts come down for all sorts of reasons. Mostly due to failed shrouds, however we had a mast tang rip out on a 2006 Gway and also had a bow tang break open right at the fold. We also had the top end of a roller furler break, bringing down the mast yet again, which Ronstan was kind enough to warranty - again 2006 boat.

We never leave sails up when not in use and drop the masts in the off season.

We are doing everything we can to keep these masts up including new rigging from Hobie every 2 years and replacing all hardware from the 7 hole adjuster to the tangs.

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Capt. Han
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St John, US Virgin Islands
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I had the exact same thing happen to me last summer. I was on a reach and noticed the jib was a bit odd. I looked and saw that the only thing holding the mast up was the jib itself. The shackle had come loose and was bent beyond my fixing on the boat.

I was able to sail in without suffering anything, though my heart was pounding the whole way.

After the fact, it occured to me that if this hapens again, the thing to do is to immediately tie the main halyard to the fore crossbar. That may be rough sailing but it should prevent demasting.

This year I also plan to carry a few extra shackles, tools, and pins with me.

The water is still cool here but in a week I hope to take her in.

Is it just my imagination or do we have more problems with rigging failures on the getaway than on other models? I have owned 3 16's and never had any problems with rigging. I do read more posts about rigging failures on the getaway than I feel comfortable with.

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06 getaway -- always remember, man with both feet in mouth have no leg to stand on.

This is the 1st hobie that I've kept mast up at the beach, so I attribute demasting to not inspecting those parts of the rigging on a more consistant basis.