'Triple Jack' rebuild...FU Irma!

[racinginparadise]

Well, it's now over 2 months since Irma devastated the Virgin Islands. Nanny Cay was particularly hard hit, no boats survived intact in the old marina, most boats ashore were dismasted or blown over or both.

Triple Jack was literally blown off her mooring as one of the 1" lines severed the front beam, the other broke, chafed? who knows. She landed ashore about 800 yds away, upside down on a concrete bridge, the mast broken in 4 places and the deck heavily damaged. Being on the bridge she was in the way and we were asked if she could be broken up with the excavator to clear the way. Fortunately Nanny Cay are our sponsors and we decided against the demolition job and to try and re-launch her by flipping her 'up and over' and back into the marina. That didn't go well , the stbd sponson was ripped off during the attempt. Plan B was simply to strap the sponson back on the beam and lift/ trundle her upside down onto blocks and out of the way. That went well but then came Maria. She fell of her blocks pushing her primaries through the now shattered deck.

A pretty bleak scene indeed.

Steve and I have owned TJ for 25 years, during that time she has never let us down despite some severe beatings both sides of the Atlantic. That includes the last 18 years or so of hard Caribbean racing pushing her ever harder and faster making some very necessary modifications along the way, mostly structural!

Post Irma both our families have evacuated and returned, my roof went, Steve's didn't but in general things have settled down and it's time to glue her back together.

Day one was today, we will keep you posted!

 

[Zaney]

Ouch   sorry guys.  Good luck with the rebuild.    Ives seen yall zipping around for years....   

 

[DtM]

Good luck. 

 

[racinginparadise]

So, on it goes. Sunday was flooding rains again, that's all the VI's seems to get now, what happened to showers?

Anyhow progress was made. The main hull is upside down but level and well chocked. We have decided to repair the port sponson bow problem first, then we'll flip her over.

The cabin roof was shown the short stick, it was that awful powdery foam that has no integrity, not airex like the rest of the boat.

We have secured a carbon mast that was snapped off at deck level on a 54 race boat, it may need a small base splice but we'll make it work.

 

[Rasputin22]

Hang in there guys! Good to hear you are biting the bullet and doing the rebuild right. Maybe after all the old racing multihulls of the the area get back in their fighting form (TJ, SOMA, VIRGIN FIRE) we can all get together for a special race, the MIMMS Regatta. Maria and Irma Multihull MashupS is my nomination for the name. Any other boats that qualify that you know of?

 

[racinginparadise]

MIMMS sounds about right but we would rather be picking off Gunboats and HH's in St Barths!

I'm sure Nils will have Soma fixed up and we will be battling again...but we have not raced against Virgin Fire since 1999!

Good progress again this weekend, we got our mast!

It took 9 of us and an hour of crane time but we managed to untangle 63' of relatively undamaged carbon spar on Saturday.

We also have the stump (it was keel stepped and failed just above the gooseneck) should any splicing be required.

The mast is now nestled safely on what was Quantum Sails' balcony before Irma levelled the top floor clean.

Happy days!

 

[Rasputin22]

`1999? I was on Virgin FIre for that race! Been that long since she has been raced? Maybe he will get some insurance from his dust up in St Martin and get her back in action. 

     Are you planning on making that carbon spar rotate? Not much point in doing so with that fat aft end that monohull non-rotating rigs use. I got into a huge debate about just this point on a new build. Did your old rig rotate?

 

[racinginparadise]

No plans to make it rotating and no, the old spar was fixed. She did race across the Atlantic with a proctor rotating spar but the ball failed off Newport, but that was before our time!

 

[Rasputin22]

Best of luck to you then! Keep us posted.

 

[PIL66 - XL2]

Heartbreaking stuff.... hope it all goes well.. good luck

Anyone heard how Soma's boat ended up..?

 

[racinginparadise]

Another early start for the Sunday TJ team!

We found two 3x12x18 roof beams blown in by Irma from who knows where?

They formed the base of a 'strongback' structure that allowed us to accurately offer up the severed bow section of the port sponson.

It went really well and we are now ready to cut away the damaged laminates and make the repair.

There's one huge advantage of being 'sunny side up'.

Years of bottom paint can be stripped away and it's tempting to fill, fair and long board...we'll see.

We measured up the donor carbon spar and found it to be ample in the length department, no spices required.

Just some adjustment of spreader locations and halyard exits required.

 

[Morpheus]

Love this boat. I've been following you for years - ever since reading an article in Multihulls Mag about you. Glad you have the balls to get her back together. That's love and passion right there. All the best - hope to see you sailing again in 2018

 

[racinginparadise]

Hey Morpheus, I wonder if that was a series of articles I wrote that featured in 'Multihull International' many years ago? I don't have them anymore but I think the title was 'Off to the Canaries'

So, here is a picture taken during the eye of Irma. We had thought TJ parted from her mooring and flipped during 'Round 2 after the eye.

Not so, she is clearly sunny side up way over on the SE side of the new marina, hard aground. Round 2 blew her back over to the far left and out of the water up onto the bridge.

Soma in the picture is on the LHS of the 40' black antifouled Bowman which is laid over on the Peninsula next to the mound of rubble.

We are all taking a Christmas break but there are some itchy days coming up in 2018!

 

[Morpheus]

Wishing you a happy christmas and all the best for 2018.

I don't recall where i saw your articles but the Round Tortola race featured heavily  

 

[racinginparadise]

OK, this is going to be a long thread. There's only 9 working weekends until BVI Spring Regatta, there's no way we can get her fixed and rigged before then!

Never mind, 'slowly, slowly catchy monkey' as they say.

Progress has been made. It was surprisingly hard to line up the severed bow section of the port sponson.

However we are ready to laminate now, the core has stripped out with difficulty...anyone who knows late 1970's airex will understand.

It's very 'plastic' and does not like peeling off the laminate.

This Sunday fresh epoxy comes out and the gluing back together really begins!

We have also spent some time 'upside down' designing the new central crew pit that will replace the main cabin!

 

[racinginparadise]

Hey Niels, thanks for the offer but we already have the carbon 'telegraph pole' we scored from Virgin Gorda.

Don't you need it?

I'll do you a deal, you find us a rudder and I'll use my crane to start tidying up Soma, mast out of the way, save whatever lines we can and maybe even lift her sideways?

I've been trying to get hold of one of those AC45 units like yours but no luck yet.

Maybe one day we'll buy an old AC45 and use the hulls as sponsons, now that would be a turbo package!

 

[racinginparadise]

It's been a while!

Once we gave up on racing this season work slowed up but now things have picked up again.

The port sponson repair is now 90% finished.

Here's some pics.

 

[racinginparadise]

hmmm, how do you get portrait pics rotated to appear the right way up?

 

[jackolantern]

Turn your head