So, last Tuesday morning we had our first race of the Swallow Boats Raid in Mylor. Not everybody raced but there were probably twenty or so boats jostling for position near the start. Before the race had even started, I had blotted my copybook by crashing my BR20 into Matt's BR20. I took a small chunk out of my rubbing strake and bent a metal bit on my bowsprit but otherwise there was no other damage. My memories of that incident are less clear than of what happened later.
The race to Malpas started in a reasonable easterly (I had a single reef in the mainsail) and off we sailed northwards towards the Truro River. This is fairly narrow in parts, with wooded hilly sides and various obstructions, including a chain ferry, trip boats and water taxis that take no prisoners, mussel beds and moored yachts. As we got further up the river, with the tide on the flood, the constant easterly changed to something that was flukey and inconstant, sometimes dropping altogether and sometimes gusting weakly from unexpected directions. I was solo and unballasted and decided that to have any hope of progressing, I needed to shake out my single reef and get the top of the mainsail up into clearer air. You can probably guess what comes next.
As I looked ahead on a long straight stretch of the river, past the chain ferry and on a sharp right hand bend, I saw a BR20 unexpectedly capsize and turtle. There didn't seem to be enough wind to make this happen and as I got nearer, I was astonished to see who it was. He was being helped by the excellent safety boats and was upright fairly quickly. The wind was very gusty on that corner but I successfully got past it.
I was on a starboard tack a bit further on, feeling fairly pleased with myself, when I was hit by a wind out of nowhere. I had time to let go the mainsheet and jibsheet but it made no difference - the boat capsized to port anyway. There was no time to climb over on the centreboard and it kept on going. It turtled, dumping me in the river.
As the first of the safety boats approached, the asymmetric buoyancy seemed to be already working with the upturned hull listing to port. I had grabbed hold of the centreboard from the water and was trying to increase the list, which wasn't having any effect. The second safety boat arrived to pick up some of my personal effects from the surface while I swam round the back and got up on to the hull from astern. I had another attempt at increasing the list to port by pulling on the centreboard with a lot more leverage but again without success. So, we got a line around the centreboard from the safety boat and they went into reverse. The boat started to tilt more to port but reluctantly, which was a puzzle.
Thinking back on it now, the top of my yard must have been firmly planted in the river bed, which explains why the boat was tilted but stable, and not drifting upriver despite the flooding tide. I subsequently found that the tube that I use to fly pennants from the top of the yard had taken a large core sample of the river bed. I can report that it's heavy black silt.
The rope from the safety boat slipped from my grasp. On the second attempt, the boat tilted a lot more, the mast came up and I was in the water again. But we were across the wind and another strong gust capsized the boat to port, turtling it once more. Back on the boat over the stern, a third attempt with the rope loop was initially unsuccessful as the centreboard shot down into its slot. I found the notch in the foot of the board, raised it and reattached the loop. The safety boat pulling hard raised the boat fairly upright and I was back in the water for the third time. Pointing the boat to windward and with the listing port side firmly attached to the safety boat to stop it going over again, I was back up over the stern for the third time and taking the sails down.
Time to take stock. The cockpit was ankle deep in water with a list to port. The contents of the bulkhead bags had emptied into the river. Anything that floated was rescued and anything that didn't (mobile phone, old camera and a few bits and bobs) sunk without trace. Everything else was still in place in a disordered sort of way and the fishfinder was still working. I was politely asked if I wanted to continue racing (which turtler no.1 had done) or perhaps moor up at the nearby lunch stop and get myself sorted out? I chose the latter.
The continuing list to port was due to a flooded port locker and a leak from there through the forward inspection hatch into the forward buoyancy chamber on that side. Once the locker and buoyancy chamber had been bailed out, the asymmetric tank finished emptying itself through a bulkhead fitting in the outboard well. The boat was thoroughly pumped and bailed out (the Whale bilge pump doing great service) and I readied for the afternoon race. By this time the handful of race finishers were back on the pontoon for lunch but the majority had found the winds further upriver too light and flukey and motored or rowed back.
The afternoon race on the Fal was fun and I quickly recovered my confidence. But I did start out with a full ballast tank and one reef in the mainsail, just to be on the safe side!
Over a beer that evening, turtler no.1 and I compared notes. We decided that the winds had either been the worst since the Great Storm of 1703, which killed the Bishop of Bath & Wells and his wife when a chimney stack was blown through the palace roof on to their bed as they slept; or more likely, we had both been flattened by vicious downdrafts from the top of the hill. Not quite katabatic but something similar. That would explain why letting go the sheets had no effect whatsoever.
Lessons learned:
1. Guano can be found where you least expect it; be prepared. Based on the five BR20 capsizes that I know of, if you are unreefed, unballasted and solo, you have an 80% chance of going on to turtle. If you are ballasted and/or have competent crew, it is much less likely. If you take risks, especially when racing, don't be surprised if you occasionally come unstuck. Safety boats are usually there to pick up the pieces. If you aren't racing and there aren't any safety boats, be more cautious.
2. If your yard is impaled in the sea or river bed, you will almost certainly need help to recover.
3. When recovering to upright, point the boat to windward and make sure that all the sheets are free and unsnagged.
4. While turtled, keep your fingers out of the centreboard slot - the board downhaul may come unfastened in the general commotion and the board will shoot into the slot. If you preserve your fingers, the board is easier to raise again. Get back on the upturned hull over the stern - it's not difficult to do.
5. On the GRP BR20, the port locker and everything in it will flood when turtled. Check inspection hatches for leaks to ensure that it can't spread from there (I have two hatches to remove and re-bed with sealant). The starboard locker will remain bone dry. Anything under the foredeck is likely to stay put.
6. If the water is 15°C, you will be too busy to notice the cold while submerged but wind chill and evaporation will rapidly cool you down once you are back on board.
7. If you are going to make a prat of yourself, try to make sure that someone eminent has done it just before you do.
8. Expect the kindly people that sail and own Swallow Boats to be much more shocked and embarrassed on your behalf than you are yourself.
9. A handy hint from a fellow turtler: if you are unballasted (which is why you turtled in the first place), once upright you can banish swamped cockpit misery by opening the big red-rimmed inspection hatch in the ballast tank roof - the water whooshes down, avoiding several minutes of pumping out. It may be easier to do this than opening up the smaller inspection hatch into the outboard well.
10. If you have a waterproof camera on the stern taking timelapse shots every three minutes, you may get lucky and have something to remember the incident by. This more than makes up for hundreds of boring photos of the front of your boat and back of your head. See below. In the first photo, I'm probably out of sight to the right, standing on the centreboard.
And yes, Peter, a masthead float might have helped. I ordered a Secumar three weeks before the raid but was told that it was out of stock with no known delivery date...
