Usually if you break a piece of windsurfing kit whilst sailing you can sail back one way or another. However, imagine sailing in waves and you break your mast at or just above your boom. This is the most common area to break a mast, and it leaves you NO chance to sail back in. You have four options.

1. Ditch your rig and paddle home (Expensive Ouch!)
2. Self-rescue by de-rigging the sail, rolling it all up and paddling back. (Even slower and pretty tricky on a small board)
3. Call the Lifeboat or attract attention by waving your arms above your head. (Sometimes works!)
4. Try this following trick.
 

I sometimes go Wave Sailing by myself early morning, or in extreme conditions. One morning before work I was out sailing and I snapped my mast in about a 10ft wave. I was alone about a mile out to sea. Nobody could see me and I couldn’t de-rig in the waves. I had no option but to ditch my rig. It took about an hour to paddle back in against an outgoing tide. I’ll never forget that paddle. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’d only been out about 10 minutes and I was quite fresh when I went out. I was pretty knackered by the time I got back in. 

A few months later, whilst sailing on a 4.2m sail way out to sea in February, I went one last big jump before I gibed. As I landed the mast snapped just above the boom! I was about a mile and a half out to sea, which was ok when I had a rig and was charging around at 25 knots – No Problem.
Now I was in the water, (temp below 10°), raining, wind blowing 30 knots, and it was February, and I had already been sailing for a couple of hours!
What would you do? Would you make it back? What if you were on your last run of the day?
 

I didn’t want to swim back, I tried to water start and uphaul but it was useless. The rig was only 3 feet tall and the sail was dragging in the water. I had a quick think what to do, and started to de-rig the sail. I pulled the broken section out of the sail, and realised I might be able to feed the top section straight into the broken lower part. However, it was a tight fit and there were broken carbon splinters everywhere.  

I couldn’t do it in such a swell, the mast needed to be straight as it was so tight. I almost gave up, but realised that if I turned the top section around it would fit in easier. So I pulled the top section out and fed it back up inside the luff tube the wrong way round. This left me the tip (a lot narrower) to feed inside the broken section. It worked first time. I fed it down and pulled the top of the sail taught. I now had a semi complete rig to sail back with. There was about 5-6 feet of mast sticking out above the boom height. I could now water start easily as the sail was very full and powerful with the lack of tension even though the top was flapping around. 

I stood forward and planed all the way back to the beach! This trick saved me a huge swim. The sail was undamaged and I didn’t need to de-rig or mess around with any ropes , outhaul etc. Just pick up another mast and go straight back out!
Without a doubt I wouldn’t have gone back out after a long, long swim – if I’d made it back.
 

Since this first time I’ve found it works fine on any size sail from 8.5m sails to really small sails on Waveboards. I’ve even seen friends in trouble with a broken mast and rather than trying to explain, just swapped kit with them and let them sail back while I’d spend a couple of minutes in the water, knowing that I could sail back in without too much trouble.  

It’s always worth a couple of pints in return, and saves ditching your new rig!

So here it is 5 steps to sailing back with a broken mast, even at boom height!

1. Pull out top part of broken bottom section and discard.
2. Pull out top section of mast and reverse it around and feed up luff tube.
3. Feed mast tip into broken bottom section at least 2 feet.
4. Pull top of sail taught away from top of mast (this will flap around, but makes sailing easier than having a very baggy sail)
5. Waterstart or uphaul and sail back to the beach. (Easier out of straps)
6. Have a chat with the person who sold you the mast!!