A series of seemingly minor errors culminated into a serious incident.
Last night, Captain was super tired so I pulled an all-nighter (12.30am-6.30am) to alleviate some of his exhaustion. However, my son was really excited to hear that today we had reached our halfway mark in crossing the Atlantic Ocean. His joyous calls were an alarm clock hard to resist.
Mistake 1: I started the day way too early following far too little sleep.
We needed to gybe all our poles and three sails, which as double-handers, takes an exorbitant amount of planning, time, and effort. In the final stages, there was an element of speed required.
Mistake 2: I rushed and started letting the highly tensioned Genoa sheet off the winch before I was really ready.
I took too many turns off the winch and suddenly the rope was whizzing out of control at full speed as an unexpected gust of the wind dragged the sail forwards. I was inadvertently sitting on the diminishing pile of rope when horror struck, my foot became entangled in the mess and I was hoisted upwards from our deep centre cockpit. Screaming and in agony, I tried to hold onto the rope to stop myself from being taken away feet first. An image of my body being whipped overboard, Drag Drowning, made me panic! Captain added some muscle to try and stop the rope whilst I held onto the wall of the cockpit with all my might. Thankfully, my daughter raced upstairs just in time to tear the tightening noose from my foot.
The shock made me shake and nearly vomit. Once calm and tears wiped, I noticed Mistake 3. In my haste to help with the gybe, I had forgotten to clip my lifejacket on to the cockpit tether - something I’m usually so OCD about - perhaps I really could have been dragged along the deck.
With time to evaluate the lessons learned, I see now that I probably wouldn’t have been thrown into the ocean. Most likely my foot would have been shredded through the 20mm block bolted to the deck, a bit like meat through a mincer. Would we have been ready to deal with such an incident? Sure, we have the medical supplies of a small hospital and a telemedicine service but lack the confidence and training for major blood loss surgery on a rolling yacht.
The ARC are amazing for organising the social events and are the best logistical backbone you could ever want. And whilst there are other ARC boats within radio distance, we are all responsible for our own adventure. This not a package-holiday coach trip and nor would we want it to be. We were lucky on this occasion but next time we may not. I’ll celebrate our milestone of reaching half-way across the Atlantic, by painting my toe nails this afternoon. All ten of them.
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