Police and military officers are well trained to respond to critical situations. How fortunate it was then for Falcon to be loaded with retirees of both flavours to deal with a somewhat testing inject whilst in the melee of boats jostling for position at the start line.
At the exact same moment as the blast of the 5 minute gun, we heard a loud, and truth be told rather unsettling, bang as the main sheet block - normally firmly attached to the boom - slammed to the deck. Whilst Bev assumed tactical control at the helm, dynamic duo Ade and James leapt to the mast to discover the boom about to part company from the gooseneck. Just one nut and bolt combo, cleverly hidden beneath rubber covers, has sole responsibility for holding these rather essential elements of our rig together… somewhat incredulously, the offending nut that had made its bid for freedom to Davey Jones’ locker was still rolling around precipitously on the coach roof. Apologies at this point to the crew of Free Spirit whose waves as they passed by went unanswered, but we were a tad busy! Within 4 minutes however boom, mast, and mainsheet were reunited, leaving us a full spare minute to compose ourselves for the final start gun!
The rest of the day thankfully was free of any further surprises. We set wing-on-wing genoa and main for our overnight rig, at one point setting a new Falcon speed record of 12.7 knots… and we weren’t even going downhill!
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