Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
Just 300 nautical miles into the Atlantic Bruce Dalling had to deal with a broken gooseneck. The mishap occurred while he was trying to reef the mainsail.
Dalling described the incident via radio-telephone to his sister Carole Chamier. “The accident happened when he was trying to get the mainsail down in a Force 7 wind (32 to 38 miles an hour) yesterday morning. The boom swung out and broke at the gooseneck (where it joins the mainmast) and blew overboard. It took Bruce five hours to get it back on board. The main winches had seized and he spent the whole day trying to carry out repairs. He jury-rigged the sails, but could get only the mizzen up and raise the mainsail about two-thirds, so he is under half to two-thirds sail” she said.
An interesting point is that the winches were upgraded and replaced before the start. This despite the original ones working perfectly on his passage from South Africa to Plymouth.
It takes a special man to race singlehanded and deal with the downsides and tough repairs. Dalling pledged to effect repairs and NOT turn back despite the setbacks.
READ MORE HERE: 1968 06 04 – Cape Times – Bruce Dalling Archives – S&A – 002457_Redacted – OCR
