Last night was one of those nights where the VO70 turns into a boat possessed and unleashes across the ocean. We were averaging over 20 knots of boat speed, there was constant blasts of white water over the decks strong enough to knock you down, It makes it hard to stay in your bunk as it lurches from side to side, back and forth in no particular pattern.
You can tell the guys on deck love it- these conditions are tough- real tough, but they are what they love. It is real adrenaline sailing. Then it gets dark and nothing changes, its just adrenaline sailing blind. Regrettably as always in conditions like these the dreaded water torture drop returned above my bunk, no matter where I placed my head, it would always land in either my eye or the middle of my forehead. There was also a constant drop onto my feet- I guess it evens it out.
Perhaps the cruelest bit of torture was still to come.
Not long after I had hopped into the bunk there was a loud bang, the boat suddenly flattened out and all went quiet for a few seconds before a frenzy of action on deck ensued. The tack rope broke on the jib broke and caused our J2 to explode into two large pieces
This leads me to my quiz question of the day: “How big is the CAMPER J2 when it is in one piece?”
All of the guys on board are pretty amazing, where most people would curse, ask why and descend into short term depressive anger, they just seem to take the knock on the chin, accept it and move on as best as they possibly can with what they have to work with.
Within minutes the J2 was bagged, the smaller J4 in the air and Daryl and Salty were already well stuck into the probably 12-hour straight repair work.
This is hurting us though, the sail we should have up in these conditions is the J2 not the J4 so we are bleeding precious miles to the fleet in every sked. We just have to hang tough and try to minimize any loses as best we can until the boys have the sail repaired again. Its not pleasant downstairs at all this morning, its hot, everything is wet, the entire sail is taking up all of downstairs, the air is thick with acetone ad spray glue on top of the existing body stench, and the violent lurching of the boat just adds to it all.
From : Camper
Credit : H.Hooper/Camper/VOR
You can tell the guys on deck love it- these conditions are tough- real tough, but they are what they love. It is real adrenaline sailing. Then it gets dark and nothing changes, its just adrenaline sailing blind. Regrettably as always in conditions like these the dreaded water torture drop returned above my bunk, no matter where I placed my head, it would always land in either my eye or the middle of my forehead. There was also a constant drop onto my feet- I guess it evens it out.
Perhaps the cruelest bit of torture was still to come.
Not long after I had hopped into the bunk there was a loud bang, the boat suddenly flattened out and all went quiet for a few seconds before a frenzy of action on deck ensued. The tack rope broke on the jib broke and caused our J2 to explode into two large pieces
This leads me to my quiz question of the day: “How big is the CAMPER J2 when it is in one piece?”
All of the guys on board are pretty amazing, where most people would curse, ask why and descend into short term depressive anger, they just seem to take the knock on the chin, accept it and move on as best as they possibly can with what they have to work with.
Within minutes the J2 was bagged, the smaller J4 in the air and Daryl and Salty were already well stuck into the probably 12-hour straight repair work.
This is hurting us though, the sail we should have up in these conditions is the J2 not the J4 so we are bleeding precious miles to the fleet in every sked. We just have to hang tough and try to minimize any loses as best we can until the boys have the sail repaired again. Its not pleasant downstairs at all this morning, its hot, everything is wet, the entire sail is taking up all of downstairs, the air is thick with acetone ad spray glue on top of the existing body stench, and the violent lurching of the boat just adds to it all.
From : Camper
