Credit : Paul Wyeth / OC Event
“We left the dock about an hour before start time on our newly branded IWC Extreme 40 and rigged in quite tough conditions, it looked like it was going to be a hard afternoon. We put a reef straight in. We had a couple of guests on board to do a short training/guest ride run and when we were going upwind we got some rather strong gusts, around 25 knots we estimated, but on top of that had some extremely large waves, freak waves that seemed to have come down the Solent. We hit the gusts and the waves at the same time. We landed off the back of one of the waves and the rig just kept on going. The dolphin striker strap broke, which caused the beam to break and the rig just kept on going through the main beam. We were lucky to save the rig. We instantly dropped the sails, unloaded the guests and nursed her back to dock and were just about to fall in half when we arrived. We managed to keep the rig up, got a crane urgently and avoided any more damage.
“You cannot repair something like that, certainly not overnight, if at all. Our only option was to find another beam, but there are no boats on the island that we can access to get a spare main beam, so unfortunately that counts us out for the rest of the week.
“The boat returns to Amsterdam at the beginning of the week, we have a spare beam there which has to be fitted to the boat, it can’t just be bolted on, it’s custom-fitted and the boys will be working on that, and we’ll do some other maintenance, like repairing centre boards, rudders and be ready to go for Kiel.
“We were a little inconsistent and that showed on the scoreboard, but the team is improving and certainly in the light to medium stuff, we felt we were right in the game. When the breeze got stronger, you can tell we have not trained enough in those conditions, but quite encouraged by improvement in the general teams performance.
“The Extreme Sailing Series continues to prove popular as one of the best forms of live spectator sailing and the level of competition is steadily improving as the class grows. It’s great to see, and hear, the public support from the shore and we look forward to being back in Cowes next year.”
Mitch and The Ocean Racing Club will be back on the startline at the next Extreme Sailing Series in Kiel, Germany from 26-29 August.
From Extreme Sailing Series
