In order to not cause any unnecessary worry, I will point out at the start
that this story ends with everyone safe and sound and actually never in any
real danger. I want to make that clear, because it starts with someone
shouting "Man overboard!"
Hearing someone shout "Man overboard!" in a non-drill situation is a real
"Oh shit" moment. We're a long way from anything, and the sea is
unforgiving. MOB drills have been a big part of training, but you still
never really expect to use it. It was a relatively calm day, but only
relatively. We had just dropped the Yankee 2 for the Yankee 1. My legs were
under the sail, as after flaking, Ryan, Kat, and I had gone to work
replacing a couple of hanks. So that's my excuse for not jumping to action.
But everything else happened so quickly that I barely would have had time
to do anything anyway.
Calls followed. "Tethered overboard!" Slight relief. This meant the MOB was
tied to the boat and not going anywhere. Clipper acknowledge three MOB
incidents (all safely recovered) in the ten previous editions of the race.
They don't even (as far as I know) count tethered MOB's. I know of several
this year alone. Anyway, she had been throwing some food waste over the
side when a small wave came over or maybe we hit a wave, but she lost her
balance and slipped through the guardrails. But she was tethered in.
Next shouts, "Heave to!" and the helm turned us around without anyone
tacking sails. This basically stops the boat. It also swaps low side and
high side, so our MOB was now a bit higher out of the water and not getting
dragged along any more. Four people were already helping to pull her out,
and it was all over in under sixty seconds.
I watched this all from under the sail. My side had become the low side,
and I was now leaning back against the guardrails. Kat had sprawled out,
giving me one hand and grabbing an A-frame with the other, just in case I
slipped. I thanked her, but assured her I was well set where I was. She
said if I went, I'd probably drag her with me. I told her I was tethered in
and to let me go if it came to that. (Just to be clear, this was all
joking, not high drama. But I have to make this at least somewhat about my
experience. That's the point of having a blog!)
In the end, she drank a bit of seawater, slightly aggravated an old
shoulder injury while being hauled out by her arms, and lost a contact.
Doug, who leads Searvh and Rescue teams up in Canada, checked her
out and confirmed she was OK. Mostly, she was shaken up. Everyone else a
bit as well. But as I said at the start, no harm done and no real danger.
In wildlife news, we've started seeing albatross. A few people thought they
were confined to the Southern Ocean, but I had seen in Wikipedia that there
are North Pacific albatorss. Still really impressive birds. And today, we
saw a seal. I spotted a patch of seaweed with something black near it. On a
closer look, I could see it was a flipper. Then he popped his head up and
had a look as we sailed by. He's a long way away from any land out here.
3510 nm to go.
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