Today marked Day 4 of the Antigua Sailing Week, the lay-day on May 1st had been a welcome break to recharge the batteries and it was well that we did so as we faced our first real challenge to see how we worked in crisis management. The first problem was a broken starter motor on the port engine of the catamaran the day before; the broken part was off in the shop being repaired and we were down to a single engine (plus our sails as a backup) but Hans mastered the de-docking and mooring pickup maneuver masterfully and small hurdle had been successfully taken when a real problem occurred. As we were finishing the day’s first races the IMOCA Open 60 “Ambersail” came too close to us and managed to entangle themselves on our mooring. The water was quite clear and I could see that the line had wrapped once around their deep torpedo keel and that we weren’t going to separate without us dropping our line. Hans got the engine started and I found myself at the bow with our biggest fender, thinking to myself “This isn’t going to help much…”, considering I had 2 hulls which were now only feet from the entangled Ambersail. Hans and I agreed that we’d cast off the mooring but his challenge was to somehow remain on station in order to make the finish a fair one for the boats arriving – in a big gaggle, of course.
We managed to keep on station and pick up the mooring with help from a photographer’s dinghy after Ambersail had freed herself with the help of a crew member jumping into the water with a mask. And nary a protest from the finishers although we did protest Ambersail but later discussion of the rules showed that the mooring line isn’t part of the course and since they hadn’t touched us they were under no compulsion to do a 720° turn before continuing racing.
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