the 2013 W Midwinters: Friday Mike Baldacchino race pics

the 2013 Wayfarer Midwinters
Friday: Mike Baldacchino race pics - 1
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A perhaps overly casual gybe into the heave-to position has resulted in a Team Feckless capsize prior to Race 1. A slo-mo self-rescue featured a near-turtle (Greenlander, for you Danes out there!!) when Al was for once on the leeward side and a bit slow to untangle himself. Once Al had swum around and gotten a death-grip on the rudder, the mast was pointed about 45° down and would not come up for quite some time despite Tony's best just under 200-poumd efforts. Finally W864 was mast-up - not to be confused with tits-up - once more. First thing we did was get the board full up before turning to the task of getting Al back aboard. I am happy to report that despite some misgivings on Tony's part, getting Tony to heel the boat to Al's side until the rubrail was level with the water (I had a bird's eye view of this!!), made it a snap (well, not too hard anyways) to slide myeslf back aboard. Note how, in the photo above, we have the board fully up and the sails fully eased. No forward motion and the tiller to leeward a bit just to be on the safe side. Tony, who does not have a heart condition, got to do the bailing while Al relaxed and supervised - stopping short of having one of our few beers which may or may not have survived ...

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