Following on from my blog about the ARC this year and the boats that were abandoned after rudder and rigging failures (read more here)….take a look at this.

This photo by World Cruising’s Andy Schell is of a jury rig arrangement for a broken chainplate on Liberty, a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45.2 taking part this year. Despite the failure, the family crew was able to finish under sail in the very respectable time of 19 days.

As the photo shows, the rigging screw of the starboard lower was lashed to ropes led back and forth from the midships cleat to the bow cleat.

Both bolts fixing the starboard chainplate had sheared. It looked as if one had previously broken as a result of crevice corrosion and the other parted later.

This arrangement lasted successfully for many hundreds of miles.