We race until we sink!

Besättningen på Sydney 38:an Goat (som förresten är en sweet båt) höll som bäst på att runda Tasman Island under Sydney Hobart när man hade en så kallad “minor bump”!

Man seglade de sista 50 distansen i en avsevärt vekare båt, men vann ändå sin klass. Hela storyn på Sailing Anarchy:

One of the owners is a former pro rugby league player and the moment that speaks volumes about the hard core nature of the program was a few seconds after the collision when one of the crew said, “We should stop and conduct and inspection.” He simply replied “We race until we sink.”At the time, we didn’t know the extent of the damage but it was obvious something was wrong because the boat wouldn’t go properly. I can also report that the “modifications” definitely weren’t performance enhancing because six boats passed us in the last 50 miles – fortunately we had ‘just enough’ to scrape home and win the Sydney 38 class.

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Tasman Island is a 500 ft cliff dropping straight into the sea and everyone says you can go as close as you like, as long as you don’t hit the cliff. It pays to cut it fine there because there is a big wind shift as you go round and a huge advantage for the daring.

We were hard on the breeze, doing about 7 knots in about 18 knots breeze and rough seas and as we rounded, we had an observer to leeward and everyone else stacked on the rail hiking hard, unclipped and primed ready to crash tack if the call came. We had passed most of the island when the wind shift really started to bite and we were ‘spun’ away onto a new course which was taking us closer to the cliff right at the very last bit of the island. We were still clearing by about 75 metres when we dropped into the trough off a big wave and onto the top of a rock. A loud ‘bang’ was heard but the boat did not slow. We immediately crash tacked and stepped out another 100 m before tacking back on to the course for Hobart.