Writing this after returning from the race. Nursing a fat lip and feeling beat up. I have a Catalina 27 which by Santa Cruz standards is a slow comfortable sailboat which we sail for fun in the informal Wednesday night sailing race. It was pretty windy and well into the race after a long downwind run we rounded a mark to head back to the harbor. A friend, Jay, was forward taking down the whisker pole. Suddenly the forestay, with the roller furling and the jib started flailing wildly. The clevis pin attaching it to the bow had failed and the forestay was no longer attached at the bottom.  The bottom part of the roller furling on the forestay is a 25lb hunk of metal and plastic, the sail under load generates a LOT of force, the wind was tossing it around vigorously, and sum of this was dangerous to be around and seriously shaking the boat. I went forward and tied a line to it, in the process of which I was whacked into the deck splitting my lower lip. The foil by this point had kinked and we couldn't get the sail down. Nor could we lower the roller furling. So we tied it in a column. Then we fastened the spinnaker halyard to the bow to replace the missing forestay (so the mast didn't fall down) and motored home, with the wind in the parts of the sail still exposed making the boat shudder as we went.

When we got back to the dock I had to go up the mast and unfasten the top of the forestay to finally get the sail down.

I like to sail, but you have to be prepared to deal with things like this. It is a real pain when stuff fails out on the ocean.