Beating out of Galveston bay into a good 20-25 kt headwind and 3-5 foot seas. We had full main and no jib. Should have had at least one reef in the main but the boat was handling well, taking the waves on the quarter. After about 30 minutes of this, just about the time we were clearing the jetties into the Gulf, the admiral explained we needed to turn around which we did.
After
getting back into the bay, I headed up and went on deck to reef the main (I know you are supposed to be able to do this
from the cockpit but it always takes me several round trips to get this done). Anyway, I discovered the gooseneck had failed. The cast aluminum piece at the
front end of the boom had broken in two:
Questions for anyone. Has anyone every seen a failure like this? Any ideas how this could have happened? Our 42 is a 1990 and most of the rig looks original (I've had the boat for about 8 months and still learning how it
handles). I'm not a marine architect but it seems to be that as long as the boom can pivot freely there should not
be a big moment on the gooseneck. My guess now is that the piece had a small defect that weakened the piece over time and that it finally failed under the
increased load. There is not question I had too much sail but I never experienced any "shock" loads (i..e. no jibes).
