DSK wrote:
What a great story! Kirk, thanks for posting this!

Thank you.
Your account of your delivery trip from Florida inspired me to do the same.
I've been emailing it to so many of my friends that I was worried my ISP
might begin to think I was a spammer!

engsol wrote:
I agree with Doug..great story. I really like these stories
posted to the news group. Besides being a good sea story, there
are usually lessons to be learned.

Thanks.
After rereading it a couple of weeks after I wrote it, I realise that
it's a bit incoherent in places. The story was written over a period of
a week or more, coming back to it, rearranging it, cut and pasting here
and there. I should have proof-read it better, there's alot of
background information that I assumed my friends would know, so I didn't
include it in the account.

Just for the record, the race was the 2004, 60th Sydney to Hobart.
The boat is a Sydney 32' called "Rollercoaster".
You can check it out on;
http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_d...ceEntryID=4749

And congratualtions on quitting smoking... very tough to do but worth
it in the long run.

After nearly three weeks back on shore, in my "normal" life, I fell back
into the habit. Writing the account kept me preoccupied enough for one
of those weeks.
Ironically John has himself since quit.

So he couldn't see and he couldn't swim, couldn't keep his breakfast
without medication, couldn't handle or steer a boat by night, couldn't
set, trim or reef a sail, couldn't bend, hitch, or splice a sheet,
couldn't admit it until he was pressed and didn't want to learn how.
No-good, Lying, Lubberly, Leech.

That's the most commonly quoted paragraph in the story, and one of my
favourites. Spent hours on that one alone.

I get the impression that you don't like this guy.

It's not that I don't like him, just tired of the garbage that comes out
of his mouth.
I'll admit I took some pleasure in coming up with the curses, with some
inspiration from C.S.Forrester and Patrick O'Brian.

"Of all the useless, slack-arsed, tale-bearing, present-seeking,
double-poxed, lily-livered lubbers to show a hand."

I'm curious that you had so many preventer problems...how was it rigged,
and what type was it?

The boat didn't have a regular preventer as such, it was just a sail tie
that had been looped around the boom, aft of the vang, then attached at
the base of a staunchion.
On a cloudy night, no stars, no moon, no sign of the shore, nothing to
give you any sense of direction, add to that some big rollers coming in
from the rear starboard quarter, pushing the stern over one way as it
approaches, then the other way as it passes. All these things put
together make steering a steady course a little tricky.
Imagine keeping your eyes closed and steer according to the direction of
the wind on the back of yourneck.

I should point out that I myself am no well seasoned sailor, but am
handy with a line, thanks to scouts/venturers, abseiling since I was a
little tacker, and working in theatres for years.
I've been racing with Chris for the last 18 months, aboard a Cape 31',
day-sailing, both inshore and off, on a weekly basis. I'm light and
reasonably agile, so I've become his foredeck man. But I don't get to
steer or trim the sails as often as I'd like.
I do enjoy all the action up on the foredeck though.