Sailing Magazine
by Richard Crockett
Something I always enjoyed was receiving correspondence from sailors out there living their dreams, yet had enough time to share their experiences with those following in their wake.
“A wall of wind hit us from the port side with driving rain and blinding spray. It was 40 – 50 – 60 knots! The wind just kept on going up and up, spray was flying everywhere and there was no visibility. We were soaked. Our forward progress slowed almost instantly and suddenly we were being blown backwards. Our zodiac dinghy took off about 10 foot into the air and came down upside down. Seconds later the wind caught it again and boom, it was right side up. Then it was airborne again and whipped sideways; the force strong enough to rip the outboard motor off the transom. Now we had an upside down dinghy with an outboard tied to it acting like a sea anchor. I handed Melanie the wheel and told her to take care of the ship while I tried to ‘fix’ our little issue. The wind was screaming through the rigging and the only way we could communicate was by looking at each other and yelling.”
There are things to learn from this feature.
READ IT HERE: Pages from 2010 11 – SAILING Magazine – OCR
