TranspacRace's video: Schock 40 GAMBLE: Episode 10

The wind was pretty strong last night and the margin of error was finite. We had a pretty big broach on the first watch of the evening so we decided all hands on deck we would rotate sleeping on the back. Tim the Aston Martin driver took over the tiller and we were ripping it. The team was beautifully in sync. Jason was behind Tim calling the numbers on the instruments, Rod was calling the wind gusts, Joey was trimming, Logan and I sat in the back watching this finely tuned machine that took nearly the entire race to get us to this level. It was if we were a rally car team. Logan switched up with Joey on trimming, everything felt as if we were utterly and totally in the groove. The wind was steady at 18knts with gusts over 20. Suddenly a 25knt gust slammed down on us, Logan furiously tried to ease everything he had but something was wrong. The Chute ended up getting wrapped around the forestay and we had to do an emergency take down. After that we put up the A4 at which point we realized why Logan struggled, the running back stay had caught in a block at the aft end of the boat for the jib sheet. We remedied the situation and then continued on with the smaller chute. Now a couple days earlier Logan had said to me that I will be a master at handling broaches before I know it, they will become normal. I was pretty startled on the first one but in part because I was worried the boat would come apart. I looked at Logan and said to him “that was a pretty intense broach” in which, as if some kind of prophetic response he said “wait till you experience an accidental reverse broach”. We continued sailing, the seasoned guys went down below to catch some sleep. Mind you, at this point we are trucking along like a freight train, teetering on the edge of another massive spill. Joey was at the tiller for awhile and Rod offered to take over for a bit. Rod was totally in the groove and the smell of Hawaii was filling our nostrils. Suddenly a massive gust of wind came from nowhere and the instruments went haywire. I was sitting on the back of the boat and watched everything unfold in slow motion as Rod pulled the tiller and then pushed it and within seconds the boom smashed to the other side of the boat and we slammed sideways. The mast was in the water and contrary to any other time in my life I have been on a boat where this has happened the keel did not pull us back upright. The wind had us pinned down. I watched as water was inching towards the main hatch. I was hanging on to the lifelines, frozen, watching in awe as the crew cooly handled the situation. My only thoughts were “we were so close but this is how it will end for Gamble”. While at some level deep down I was terrified, my military training kicked in and I remained calm through out the ordeal. I leapt into action and made sure my shipmates where all accounted for, I leapt forward to assist Logan and Tim with the take down. We were able to get the chute in and shove it below deck, the boat righted itself but left us in irons. Gamble once again held together and so did her crew. The dual rudders make getting out of irons somewhat more difficult because if we get flow over both rudders going backwards she will continue backwards with ease unlike other configurations. Eventually we got her going in the right direction. At this point no one had slept hardly a wink of sleep. We were all on edge, but we survived.