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first, but they were sweet, unlike their stinky fish breath! Like the dolphins, they were
highly intelligent and were always welcome visitors. This time they brought us good luck:
within a few hours the wind picked up in strength and soon we were bowling along at five
knots!
Very suddenly one afternoon, the skies became inky black, and we were engulfed in a huge
squall. The wind turned icy cold and increased in strength to around twenty-five to thirty
knots. The seas had big whitecaps, and the sails started to flog. We were very over can-
vassed and had our big, light-wind genaker flying out about fifteen feet above and beyond
the bowsprit. I yelled at Gavin, “Grab the helm, get us up to windward! I'll go and drop the
genaker!”
“OK,” he answered hoarsely, looking rather nervous.
The wind was whipping the sail terribly now, and the noise was deafening. Gavin yelled
something which was lost to the wind. I couldn't wait any longer, I was afraid the genaker
would be damaged and flipped the last two coils of halyard rope off its winch. Suddenly,
the rope was whipping through my hand searing my palms most painfully; I could have
sworn I saw a puff of smoke! The sail blew off like a kite to the end of its halyard tether
well above the mast. This could be a dangerous situation and could damage the mast. The
noise was deafening and we were still sailing along at a helluva clip heeled way over from
the full main that was bulging with the strain.
I screamed out, “Gavin, get up here quickly, I need help!”
“I can't leave the helm,” he answered.
“Fuck the helm and come up, or we could lose the bloody mast!” I raged back at him.
He came up all white from fear or anger and I said, “Come on, we must get the God damned
genaker down before it destroys itself or the mast.” Gavin reached up and helped grab the
sheet, and together we pulled on it until the wind spilled out from the belly. A lot of the
fight suddenly went out of the sail. I said, “I'll finish this; just drop the main now that we
are into the wind, quickly before we jibe!”
“Aye aye, skipper!” he yelled angrily back at me.
The icy wind still howled through the rigging, and large drops of freezing, cold rain started
to fall around us. I heard a strange hissing noise that made me freeze, and at the same time
Gavin said, “Jesus Christ, what's that fucking noise?”
It was sheets of the largest amount of water falling I have ever seen in my life. It made
the sea surface boil, smoke actually, and it stilled the wave motion: it literally knocked the
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