(Dubai, United Arab Emirates)- Holy smokes, you have to read this
story that just came in across the wires from Matt Britton, owner of
J/92s #2 called PRIVATEER and member of the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club.
"Hi Guys, just thought I would share our experience of 2 weeks ago on a benign day in Dubai. We were sailing in one of the club commodores cup series in about 10 to 15 Knot working our way offshore up wind. The forecast was matching reality and it was a lovely sail. We were flying Full main and our 138% number 1, 5 crew on board but not a great amount of experience. The sky darkened to windward and we were expecting the typical 5 minutes of 20 to 25 Knot squall we get in these parts. Usually enough to luff your jib a little and ride it out till the Squall passes and carry on racing. I will point out that we also usually have a big hole behind our squalls so retaining the sail for the 5 mins as it comes through is well worth it. The first notice of something different was the beneteau 34.7 200m to windward splitting its jib in two. Then all Hell broke loose. I had from this point on a lot of other things to look at, but from the rest of the fleet in the bar later, we had wind readings of 54+ knots!! Needless to say we let everything fly. But, the boat was still healing to the point where water was entering the cockpit. We started to furl the head sail just as it was about a metre from being in the furling line went (we later found out it had pulled out of its fitting as we had reached the end, the sail being furled so much tighter than usual). So back over she went. Life jackets and harness lines on!! I checked the GPS we were traveling 6 knot over ground but only 0.2 Knots forward (e.g.. all movement side-ways!). The distance to the big breakwater wall was diminishing to fast for comfort.
I then started the engine to try to help her up to windward to help with the dropping of the jib. This made no difference. Still no forward movement and therefore no answering helm that much head sail up. Clipped in I sent crew on to the foredeck to get the jib down, which they did after a little time. She then came under a little more control and I was able to force her through a tack by slowly sheeting in and using the trusty 19 year old Yanmar. This meant we were no longer heading towards the breakwater wall and my heart started to beat again (nobody likes mentally working out abandon ship procedures for a 5 metre high rock wall to leeward while trying to stay calm for the crews sanity). Main down next and everything started to feel a little calmer despite the wind still being up in the mid 40's. We started to slant our way home riding the short horrible chop as best we could. After about 10 mins the crew spotted a flare which had just ignited about 20m before hitting the water. It was level with us about a mile away so we started to motor across the swell towards the spot the guys had seen it. 10 minutes of anxious motoring later one of the crew spotted a man in the water about 100 metres to leeward (we had almost sailed right on by, only the fact that he turned up wind so we saw the life jacket meant we saw him despite every body looking out.) We picked him up which was a little worrying in that swell and got him safe on board. Then tried to get hold of his boat on the VHF, a 10 minute job due to lots of Arabs over-talking on channel 16 here, the channel is used by the locals for general chat!! He had been in the water for maybe 20mins about 4 miles offshore) due the fact that as he fell overboard (due to a guard wire snapping at the rope connection) he had taken the jib sheet with him which had gone straight into the prop of his boat who had already had to cut their main from her mast so had no way of getting back to him. We then headed home. The wind was still up at 35+ knot when we reached home 2 hrs after the 1st gust. The boat that had lost Murph into the water was about 2 miles in front doing 5 knots under bare poles heading back in, they had gotten our message of rescuing Murph. The Cost? We shredded our jib, the main has a big tear from the action of a reefing ring and a batten pocket set close together and the pre-feeder had gone from the roller furler. But, thank goodness the whole fleet made it in safe with no major injuries.
Lessons learned:
1. I am so glad we do not go super light for ORC regulations, we carry all the relevant safety kit including a decent anchor and warp (to many boats are changing there levels of kit after this)
2. M.O.B. practice is worth its weight in gold when it all goes wrong and the s#@$t hits the fan!
3. Life jackets on early calms things down a lot.
4. I will carry my storm jib always from this point onwards.
5. I will be giving my crew training on how to let off a flare.
6. More line on the furler drum to allow for a very tight furl.
All in all a busy and expensive day!!" To read more about J/92s sailboat and other sailing heroes in the J/92 class
