Forget burying the rail, I was about to bury the windows...
The storm right before the start
On our way back in
Out for Wednesday night racing ahead of a thunderstorm. Half the fleet retired but the Barba Roja soldiered on in steadily building wind and a small fleet of starting boats. Got caught in a nasty squall about 30 seconds later, with an observed peak gust of 37kts. We still had full sails up and got knocked pretty hard, and the crew quickly went to work getting sails down. I started the motor to regain control as we were being pushed towards another racer, and was able to get us pointed into the wind. Unfortunately a loose jib sheet wrapped the prop, but thankfully we drifted just clear of the other boat, the line cut itself, and we were able to limp home.
Superb crew work all around, my hats off to the entire team today. Glad we handled the situation and everyone made it back safely. A valuable learning expereince, but hoping not to have a repeat performance any time soon.
(Photos courtesy of Steven Birchfield & Polly Traynham)