A Recent Crash I Participated In

I recently blogged about the Istanbul Extreme 40 crash. Two weeks ago, I was in a crash first-hand. It was nowhere near as dramatic but created all kinds of excitement.

I was racing on Wharf Rat, a J24 skippered by my friend David Duquette at RYC. We were taking part in the Transplant Cup, an annual J24 regatta hosted by the nice people at Richmond County Yacht Club. It was an early outing for us and we were up against very experienced competitors. We were fighting to not be last. In this we were successful.

On Day 2, the conditions were a tad fresh but we soldiered on all the same. In the last race, things got a little too exciting. On the final leeward mark of the day we collided with another boat. We both protested. We claimed that we had the overlap and they claimed we didn't. We were the inside boat on the mark and they hit us amidships. Fortunately no one was hurt but we later realized that their pulpit had busted the middle starboard stanchion. Thank God no one was sitting there!

The protest committee deliberated for a long time and disqualified us both saying that we couldn't prove the overlap and we both should have avoided the collision. I will spare you our own opinion. At this point it's sorta irrelevant but if you're interested, the skipper posted about it on Sailing Anarchy and it created a lot of discussion.

You can also see the event in question at 7:28 in this video.

Let us know what you think.