Sailing Magazine
by Richard Crockett
A few weeks back I shared a feature that Dudley Dix had written about the 2014 storm at the beginning of the Rio Race. He penned that having reflected further on the race and also written a book on the subject. Today’s feature was written from the heart not long after he and his crew had returned to Cape Town aboard ‘Black Cat’.
This is just one rather chilling paragraph: “While changing from the #1 jib to the smaller #3, we were running and gaining speed rapidly. ‘Wavy’ was standing on the foredeck at the forestay, hauling down the tatters of the jib when we took off down a wave, accelerating to 22 knots. The waves were very short and steep and we ran straight into the back of the next wave. Wavy was washed aft against the shrouds, spraining his ankle and inflating his automatic life-jacket. At the same time the tiller went sloppy in my hands. Although ‘Black Cat’ was running fast and straight down the wave she was doing it on her own – we had no steering.”
This is another great read which shares many lessons on seamanship, safety and heavy weather sailing.
READ IT HERE: Pages from 2014 02 – SAILING Magazine – OCR
The book “South Atlantic Capsize” written by Dudley Dix is available here: https://www.dixdesign.com/articles.htm
