Elise’s forestay broke in the late afternoon of Day 4 in the Pacific Cup race to Kaneohe Bay on Oahu. The San Francisco-based Express 27 was sailed doublehanded by Nathan Bossett and Nathalie Criou, and they were in second place at the time. The wire broke inside at the top of the mast 1/4” below the swage. It was a clean cut, and the forestay fell right on deck.

They don’t really know why it broke - the loads on it were not heavy - but speculate that maybe the swage was too tight? Fortunately, they were already sailing downwind in pleasant weather, with a spinnaker pulling the mast foreward. The forestay was about three months old and had been tested in heavy weather racing on San Francisco Bay.

Their first fix was to drop the spinnaker and attach all the halyards to the tack fitting as a replacement forestay. They used a spare pole as a compression post.

Then Nathan noticed that the pin used to attach the deck-stepped mast to the base plate was gone. They had a spare pin, but the three pin holes were already misaligned - the mast floating free in its plate - so Nathan was only able to get the spare through two of them. He added a hose clamp and galvanized wire to help stabilize the base. Obviously they sailed on mainsail only that night.

The following day they came up with an alternative solution for the forestay, out of fear that the halyards would chafe, and in order to free up a halyard to use for a foresail. Nat grinded Nathan up the mast. He took with him the web jackline so they could substitute that for a forestay. Webbing stretches, so they had to tighten it every day. They also tightened the backstay, so that the mast was raked back five degrees - not ideal for downwind sailing. They weren’t real confident with this arrangement, so tried it out for another day and a half before trying to fly a spinnaker.

After that, they removed one halyard from the forestay arrangement to use for a kite. They doused it (mostly at night) whenever the mast started pumping due to swell and wind conditions. To minimize pumping, they also tightened the aft lower shrouds.

Despite their troubles, Nat says the sailing was fabulous. The air was much warmer than she expected, especially in the beginning. Elise’s interior remained dry and comfortable, the little dodger helping during the upwind leg. She had been asked if it was not claustrophobic for two people to go to sea on such a small boat. “You’re on an immense blanket of water. It was not claustrophic at all - quite the opposite. It was magical.”

One night they met up with Moonshine, the Dogpatch 26, also sailing in the Doublehanded division. They sailed past very close by.

Sailing doublehanded, Nat said, “When you’re on watch you focus on sailing the boat, and little else enters your mind. In light air the focus is on trimming the sails. In heavy air you focus on driving. When you’re off-watch, you just eat, sleep, tend to hygiene - that’s all you have time for.”

Today, Nat and Nathan will sail Elise around the island from Kaneohe to Honolulu, where they will haul her out and prepare for her trip home - onboard a Pasha ship.

Elise is sailed for BeatSarcoma, an organization Nat started after her own battle with the rare cancer. You can read more about their adventures, and see more photos plus video, on their website at http://blog.beatsarcoma.org. For more on the Pacific Cup, including complete results and more boat blogs, see http://pacificcup.org.