Over the years I had done a lot of sailing with Don Thomson (starting at the Arlington Yacht Club). When I opened my sail loft the timing was good, and I sold him a full suit of sails for his new San Juan 24. As a result, I was sailing with him on a semi-regular basis. This day started like the others, but it was to get more interesting.
We were racing at the Fort Worth Boat Club on a nice Sunday afternoon. The wind was fresh, but still within the limits of the full sized genoa. Over the years I’ve forgotten many of the minor details, but Don was a good starter and we were fast to windward, so I assume the first leg went well. We put a chute up on a close reach, and everything was going well until we broached. Broaches were not uncommon in a San Juan 24, so we knew the drill. I dumped the chute and waited for the boat to come back up. About the time I was expecting Don to turn the boat back on course, I heard him yelling to take the chute down. This seemed a little odd, so I turned around. There was Don waving the tiller around. It seems the tiller had snapped right at the fitting for the rudder head. I agreed that the chute needed to come down.
Once we got the chute down, we decided to try and sail the boat. We set the genoa a little loose and used the main to trim the boat. To our surprise, we were successful. Knowing this wasn’t a safe way to race with traffic, I then went for the repair bag. The best solution I could come up with was using our spare winch handle as a splint and lashing the tiller back in place. It wasn’t very strong and pulled off twice before Don learned the limits of how hard he could pull. After that we were back in business. We set about proving that if you really focus on sail trim and crew weight placement, the rudder is not used very much.
We didn’t win the race, but we were not last either. After the race we decided to put the motor on the transom, since the entry into his slip would require more turning and close tacking than we thought possible. As we approached the harbor, another San Juan 24 that had just beaten us for his first time ever hailed “good race”. Don couldn’t resist showing the guy the tiller and telling him we broke it on the second leg. He really spoiled the guy’s day.