Crew Blog

Destroying the spinnaker

06 October 2007

We had an exercise in team building experience today: we utterly destroyed our heavyweight spinnaker.

Understandably, the person at the helm at the time initially felt responsible but the crew wouldn’t hear any of that. The true cause was an error in rigging that had existed for the previous 12 hours. Last night, when we gybed the spinnaker to the starboard side off the port pole, we neglected to move the wrap net to the starboard side of the inner forestay. The opportunity for a wrap existed the entire night. Late this morning, the wind found its chance and took it. Perhaps we hit a gust of wind. Perhaps a wave rolled us hard enough to back the spinnaker. Perhaps we surfed down a wave and overran our spinnaker. Whatever it was, in only a few moments our sturdy and powerful spinnaker billowed in three or four pockets, looking like a sausage or a street performer’s segmented balloon.

We worked for an hour or more gallantly trying to come up with solutions. We were in the process of preparing to drop the entire inner forestay/spinnaker mess onto the deck to separate below decks when that first, sickening sound of a rip was heard. In perhaps only a minute that sausage turned into several ugly and loudly snapping rags. The only thing left to do was cut the remains down with a knife.

The person at the helm who’d initially felt responsible was eventually truly convinced that this was a team effort, not a single person’s act. Any one of 17 of us could have picked up on the error in the wrap net. None did. All of us took part in this. 

To no one’s surprise, the heartfelt laughter we associate with our day to day life on this boat barely had the chance to subside before we were back at it with our usual jokes. “Better to have a bad start than a bad finish,” skipper Mark said. In a race that only offers ten points, we might lose up to four points, depending on if we have it professionally repaired or outright replaced. This means we might reach Brazil with an overall negative score.

In the end, this experience is more about the people we share it with. Nothing like adversity to bring out the best in people,” someone observed.

To no one’s surprise, we’re finding that we truly have the best.

Timothy Ettridge