Sausage (22853km):
5498 days ago iS122, 8.8CRed, 46 C3 Venom. Yeppoon, Wind NE 11 - 14knots
Some days you just shouldn't get out of bed. Got home at 5.30 from work as there was a slight seabreeze. Everything was going fine even though just planing at times. Getting dark around 6pm and I thought one more 10 minute run and I'll finish up for the day (which ended up being 6.50 and pitch black by the time I hit the beach).
Headed around 2.0km out, gybed, hooked in, and snap....my brand new monocoque aluminium boom shears off about 250mm from the head. Somehow managed to keep rig and myself upright by grabbing mast and back end of broken arm as far as I could reach. Okay I thought, it's going to be slow but I think I can sail this thing back in. Now about 15 minutes into new freestyle sailing move and interchanging between holding the mast and then uphaul rope for better sail position, my arms where completely blown up and I'd only travelled about 500metres. I was thinking at this stage that there's no way I can keep this up for another 1.5 km so I jumped off into the now very dark water to flip the boom over so I could at least sail with the good boom arm. Doing this in near darkness with a sizeable swell and in the back of my mind a very in-depth conversation about sharks I had with Gestalt that very afternoon, I was feeling slightly uncomfortable. To make matters worse I knew the wife had taken the boys to swimming club at six so there was no one looking out for me. Anyway I'm here to tell the story so things can't be all that bad.
PS - first and last monocoque aluminium boom I'll be purchasing.
Here's the track of my boom change over for anyone needing to know.
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