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Is he doing it single handed? I'd love to do that one day. I did a trans-Atlantic about 10 years ago (Liverpool, england to Salvador, Brazil) as part of the cl

by aidos 9y ago

Is he doing it single handed? I'd love to do that one day. I did a trans-Atlantic about 10 years ago (Liverpool, england to Salvador, Brazil) as part of the clipper challenge race. We had a few force 8 and above experiences between the training and the actual trip. The boats were a bit bigger (68 foot, from memory) but either way it's amazing how resilient they are. Once we went right over surfing down a wave (had a broach). At one point the boat was standing upright on the bow and was over so far that the mast was almost level with water so I could walk up it. The team spent a lot of time stitching those sails together again :-)

bogomipz 9y ago
>"Once we went right over surfing down a wave (had a broach). At one point the boat was standing upright on the bow and was over so far that the mast was almost level with water so I could walk up it." Wow, did you flip over end over end then? How did you become oriented with the direction of the wave? Did the boat just right itself?
- aidos 9y ago
  We were flying a kite at the time and the line had become jammed on the winch. As a result, we couldn't spill any wind and the pressure of the wind on the 3 sails was so strong that the boat was being dragged along (had been doing about 20 knots before it happened). The skipper decided to dump the line that was holding the spinnaker pole back, which turned out to be a terrible idea. Obviously that line has all the force on it, so the spinnaker pole shot forward and snapped in half on the forestay (thank God it didn't take the rigging out). It didn't really ease the pressure and the kite was still flying. Luckily (or not) the kite ripped under the force. It was still pulling us along but because enough pressure had come off everything by this stage we were able to get the main down. We ended up having to drop the kite in the sea and then spent a couple of hours getting it back on board. It was a pretty exciting afternoon :-)

by aidos 9y ago

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Once we went right over surfing down a wave (had a broach). At one point the boat was standing upright on the bow and was over so far that the mast was almost level with water so I could walk up it." Wow, did you flip over end over end then? How did you become oriented with the direction of the wave? Did the boat just right itself?

aidos 9y ago
We were flying a kite at the time and the line had become jammed on the winch. As a result, we couldn't spill any wind and the pressure of the wind on the 3 sails was so strong that the boat was being dragged along (had been doing about 20 knots before it happened). The skipper decided to dump the line that was holding the spinnaker pole back, which turned out to be a terrible idea. Obviously that line has all the force on it, so the spinnaker pole shot forward and snapped in half on the forestay (thank God it didn't take the rigging out). It didn't really ease the pressure and the kite was still flying. Luckily (or not) the kite ripped under the force. It was still pulling us along but because enough pressure had come off everything by this stage we were able to get the main down. We ended up having to drop the kite in the sea and then spent a couple of hours getting it back on board. It was a pretty exciting afternoon :-)