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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

General Sailing Forum

Found a clevis pin

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JohnP
Master Marine Consultant

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1520 Posts

Initially Posted - 05/27/2011 : 09:54:55

Sailed the day before with 5-10 knot breezes. No unusual occurrences. Slept at a quiet anchorage, and we woke up to find a 3/4" clevis pin on the sole of the cockpit near the companionway.

No loose standing rigging or running rigging. Where could it have come from?

Clues:
1. It's an old piece and has some wear marks from decades of use, including traces of rust mainly at the head-end and also at the cotter pin-end, but less in the middle.
2. No cotter pin was found, of course.
3. I have no extra clevis pins in my parts collection in the cabin.

I looked again last night with binoculars and all the standing and running rigging at the masthead, on the boom, and on deck is intact. I found no clevis pins missing. There are clevis pins like this on the lifelines, the traveler, the turning blocks at the mast step, and on the stays and shrouds. From what I can see, they're all in place, especially the stays and shrouds!

What do you think?

I'll make sure to be careful next time I hoist the sails!

In spite of the clevis pin mystery, at the end of our overnighter we saw this Chesapeake Bay skipjack with a crew of 20 tourists motoring out of the Magothy River onto the Bay. Someone was shouting to the crew lined up on deck "Heave...heave...heave!!!" as the mainsail went up. Some of these skipjacks are still used on the Bay to dredge oysters.

JohnP
1978 C25 SR/FK "Gypsy"
Mill Creek off the Magothy River, Chesapeake Bay
Port Captain, northern Chesapeake Bay

Edited by - on

Prospector
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
3159 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 10:14:39

Did you check the triangle where the split backstay splits? Seems to me there are a few in there that would take some wear.

Edited by - on

JohnP
Master Marine Consultant

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1520 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 11:16:02

Thanks, but I have a single backstay, and it's intact, as is the forestay, lower shrouds and upper shrouds.

Edited by - on

Nautiduck
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3704 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 11:27:37

mainsheet?

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JohnP
Master Marine Consultant

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1520 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 11:38:31

Not the mainsheet at the traveler, not the outhaul made from an old mainsheet, and not the boom vang!

Edited by - on

JohnP
Master Marine Consultant

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1520 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 11:41:12

Looks like the clevis pin had not been moved or turned much at all over many months or years, from the look of the rust and the dirt on it.

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John Russell
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3444 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 12:32:06

Check the masthead with a pair of binoculars. I wouldn't hoist a sail without having a close look at every point in the standing rigging that should have a pin in it. I would imagine that anything connected aloft with a pin would have fallen with it but, you never know. Do your halyards all run freely, i.e, on sheaves, as they should?

Maybe it fell out of the boom after having been "lost" in there for some time? Any internal sheaves missing or maybe replaced by a PO?

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Stinkpotter
Master Marine Consultant

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Djibouti
9076 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 13:18:26

Looks like a pin for a shroud--about the right size. Did you put the mast up fairly recently (or have it done)? If somebody else did it, they might have "lost" a pin and replaced it. Look for a shiny new one--you might have the one it replaced. It could have been hiding in a hatch gutter or something. (If your mast falls down, I never suggested this...)

Edited by - Stinkpotter on 05/27/2011 15:47:56

OJ
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4382 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 14:41:56

I left a clevis pin on a dock neighbor's cockpit floor once - about 90 minutes before the start of a race . . .

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Joe Diver
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1218 Posts

Response Posted - 05/27/2011 : 15:50:42

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by OJ
 I left a clevis pin on a dock neighbor's cockpit floor once - about 90 minutes before the start of a race . . .

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Happy D
Admiral

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921 Posts

Response Posted - 05/28/2011 : 04:43:15

I find it hard to believe that a shroud pin would fall out and the shroud not fall to the deck.
I removed my shroud pins and it was not an easy task.
Did someone row by in a dinghy and toss it into your boat?

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dmpilc
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
4593 Posts

Response Posted - 05/28/2011 : 04:45:33

Re: OJ above, someone may be just messing with you.

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JohnP
Master Marine Consultant

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1520 Posts

Response Posted - 05/28/2011 : 10:05:01

I put up the mast recently and got all the rigging in place. No loose clevis pins from that!

Good idea, David, and someone DID have access to the cockpit of my boat while I was anchored in a quiet cove.

...It was that darned osprey again! He's always flying overhead looking down at me with that scornful gaze! I know I can't trust 'em!

Edited by - on

Dave5041
Former Mainsheet Editor

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USA
3758 Posts

Response Posted - 05/30/2011 : 11:37:31

My wife claims that people are always breaking into our house and moving things. Sometimes they take or leave something and come back later to return or retrieve it. Sometimes it's ghosts doing it.

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JohnP
Master Marine Consultant

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1520 Posts

Response Posted - 05/30/2011 : 19:31:36

Well, in fact, one clevis pin did come loose the day I dropped the mast a while back. The forestay clevis pin slipped overboard with a loud "plop".

So I suppose the "ghost of the sailing vessel Gypsy" may have retrieved the lost pin from the mud below my slip and decided to return it to me a month later when I was anchored out overnight.

I went sailing yesterday evening and night and all the rigging is certainly in its place, including the new clevis pin I bought at West Marine to reconnect the forestay.

End of story!

Edited by - on

OLarryR
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3440 Posts

Response Posted - 05/31/2011 : 03:28:13

I have a somewhat similar situation but I had not dropped the mast or done anything with the standing rigging recently - I found a cotter pin in the cockpit near the transom. I have looked all over and cannot figure out where it came from. It was intact with mostly straight stems.

I suspect that when I was retrieving my wallet, keys, etc from the cockpit starboard side locker, I may have accidentally had a cotter pin cling onto whatever I was retrieving and it fell into the cockpit. I did have one or two cotter pins in the locker and the fact that the cotter pin had straight stems (no broken stems) seems to me that it was cotter pin that was not being used and that would support the fact that it happen to fall out of the locker when I was retrieving something.

This kind of reminds me of that movie "Doc Hollywood" when Michael J Fox's car is ready after the local repair place basically put his car back together again and they returned some extra parts to him indicating...they always have extra parts after completing a repair !!

Edited by - OLarryR on 05/31/2011 03:30:53

redeye
Master Marine Consultant

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3476 Posts

Response Posted - 05/31/2011 : 06:04:52

Can't remember seeing a clevis pin get chewed up that much. What part is moving that much with a clevis pin? Something on the front of the boom?

Splains why the cotter pin is gone....

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