| At sea. Atlantic Rowing Race: Pacific Pete capsizes, auto self righting fails, Chris saves the day |
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| Monday, 09 January 2006 | |
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Chris Martin: The short story: Last night at about 7 o’clock a large wave came from the stern of Pacific Pete and broke on the boat capsizing the boat. Pete didn’t automatically self-right as designed and I was able to turn the boat over get back in and put things to rights. I have broken 2 blades and the support yacht are now enroute to donate some more blades. The long story: The sun had just dipped below the horizon but the sky was still quite light and the moon had become the brightest thing in the sky. It had been rough all day but nothing worse than what I’d experienced in the past. I noticed that a large wave was coming up behind me and made sure that the stern pointed into it. (If you broach on a wave that size you will capsize - no questions) The stern rose, and rose, and rose. We must have been close to 50 or 60 degrees befroe the wave finally broke turning all the water around me into white surf. Within a second the boat had capsized. The first thought I had was how similar this was to the first capsize drill that I ever did with Hampton School as part of the J14 squad. We did a capsize test in the LEH swimming pool. The sea was about the same temperature but without chlorine and with more salt! I managed to get my feet out of the shoes and immediatly began searching for air. The boats are designed to self right so I was worried to discover that Pete was lying with his bottom to the sky. Gulping in air and taking stock of the situation it became clear that things were going to take a turn for the worse unless Pete could be turned up the right way. I made my way round to the bows and tried to clamber onto Pete but the waves and the lack of any hand hold made this impossible. Time was ticking by. Maybe a minute was past now. The longer the boat stays submerged like this the less likely it is to self right. Suddenly my mind came round to a thought of the rudder. If I could grasp that it might give me enough leverage to turn the boat over. I had been tied onto the boat the whole time with an ankle leash that came tangled in with the Radar transponder pole. After a bit of a sort out I got down to the rudder and leaning on it and to my delight managed to turn Pete the right way up. I swam round to the side of Pete and had to undo my ankle leash as it had become tangled in the VHF aerial during the righting. I quickly put it back on though after climbing aboard. I then started doing everything I could to sort out the boat and make sure it didn’t happen again. The 2 oars I was using, and my last 2 oars were broken and crushed. I then filled up all bottles with water to act as ballast and make sure they were secured under the decks. This is the main reason why Pete didn’t fully self right. As I had been drinking the ballast water I had been neglecting to replace it with sea water to act as ballast. After that I checked that the hatched hadn’t leaked which miraculously they had not. I then sat inside and called the support yacht to ask for some more blades. They are about 2 days away. I didn’t get much sleep last night and could hear every wave all night. However because of this I believe that if it does happen again I am considerably more able to deal even better. The boat has so much ballast in it he can’t help but self right and I have put measures in place to make it easier to turn over if it doesn’t. I am fine. A little shaken, a little stirred but in good health and spirits. Thank you so much for your texts and emails of support. They mean so much to me. I’ll try and come up with some witty comments and observations tomorrow. I’m just counting myself very lucky at the moment. Especially as team 1 - Digicel were unable to turn over their capsized boat last night and spent some time in their liferaft before being picked up by a Spanish Trawler. Chris Martin in Pacific Pete is from Surrey UK and is the only male solo competitor www.tranatlanticforce.co.uk/ Event website http://www.atlanticrowingrace.co.uk |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 09 January 2006 ) |
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