Practical Boat Owner - June 2018

PRACTICAL

A

fter Zest’s dismasting and
structural damage caused by
a rogue wave (see Learning
from Experience, PBO May
2018 ), we were faced a large project to
repair the damage and return her to
better-than-original condition.
The incident happened when my partner
and Zest owner, Kass Schmitt, and I were
on passage from the south coast of the
UK to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
The extreme loads on the boat resulted
in the port chainplate carrying away,
taking with it a chunk of the main
bulkhead, plus a six foot length of the side
deck. The keel-stepped mast also broke
about a metre above the gooseneck.
One of the early decisions was where to
undertake the work. In a sense this could
have been done in Spain or Portugal,
although Muros, the port of refuge we
motored to after the incident, had a boat
yard, but scant boatbuilding facilities. A
bigger concern was the lack of local
surveyors and structural engineers with
experience of Zest’s type of construction.

Kass on board

the repaired boat,

leaving Plymouth

in the 2017

OSTAR

LEFT Zest was

dismasted by

a rogue wave

130 miles off the

Spanish coast

So we decided to truck the boat back to

Medina Yard in Cowes, via the Santander

to Portsmouth ferry. We’d refitted Zest

there a couple of years earlier and all the

professionals whose advice we needed

would be easily found.

We carried out much of the work,

including all the project management,

ourselves, while engaging experts in

specific fields to lead in their areas of

specialism. While waiting for a survey (and

for space in a shed to become available)

we talked a number of local friends,

boatbuilders and designers, including John

Corby, Guy Whitehouse, David Heritage,

Patrick Morton and Martin Nott, about

potential ways of tackling the work. There

were two issues to consider, firstly repairing

the damage and, secondly, ensuring a

similar failure couldn’t happen again.

It also provided an opportunity to update

the rig. Although the mast that’s now

Structural

repairs

Following dismasting by a freak

Atlantic wave, Rupert Holmes

and Kass Schmitt were faced

with a huge rebuild job