© Sam Davies
Hello!
What a crazy 48 hours it's been!
I got away nicely from the Ice Gate, and then things went wrong....
As I was tidying away my code 0 there was a bang and Roxy shook with the shock. It was a mainsheet padeye that had exploded (probably due to excessive "slattting" in no wind.) So, I made a temporary mainsheet with snatchblocks and the spinnaker sheet and I got to work lashing a replacement.
5 minutes later there was another "bang" and Roxy came to a stop, with her nose down, like we'd tripped over something. We had, a whale.
Luckily I had been sitting down, so I was fine. I went to check inside and under the hull with the endoscope. All was still in place. The inspection on deck showed a large impact on the daggerboard, where the whale had caused it to pivot in its case, the leading edge of the board had hit the deck, causing a faire bit of damage to the board. On lifting the board, I discovered similar damage on the respective leading and trailing edges of the board where they had been touching their chocks.
So, I think i got away lightly, given the other boats' problems, but I am limited to only half of my broken board, so port tack is hard now!
The crash freaked me out a bit, and for the rest of the day and night I couldn't stop thinking about hitting something. So that night I sailed a bit nervously and reefed down sooner than usual, as Roxy was doing speeds of 18+ knots it was all too much.
I am really cross with myself for having done that. On top of that I found myself in another personal wind hole yesterday morning (that the others didn't get), and the result is that I have been overtaken. I am so frustrated about all this.
SO, a new day is here, Roxy is speeding along upwind in 25 knots of wind and I have a new challenge - to try to get back past Cali and Yannik, who actually aren't too far ahead of me. I have gone from being the hunted to being the hunter and I'm going to do all I can to catch them!
Sx
