Squalls are common in an Atlantic crossing. We had been lucky for a while, only passing under electric storms accompanied by light rain that strangely brought no wind. It had been heard of other boats ahead of us were passing through all sorts; wind holes and strong squalls. Our luck ran out just as fatigue and the longing for land had started to creep in. One night, at about 1am, we were hit by the most ferocious storm that I had ever felt. Caught by surprise with the full main sail and cruising jib out, we were thrown sideways by 45 – 50 knots of wind. Myself and one other person off watch were called up to deck to assist those on watch trying to bring the main sail down. I came up to witness the mast bending at an alarming angle and half of the cruising jib lying on the deck, the other half in the water but still being held together. It had ripped out of the foil, snapping a piece off the bottom of the forestay that luckily, we managed to salvage later. After collecting the sail, I moved into the cockpit and together as a team, we attempted to bring the mainsail down. That was much easier said than done due to the strong winds pushing the sail against the rigging. In total, it took 5 of us and 20 minutes to finally get it down. We almost had a man overboard when the First Mate got swung around by a change in wind direction, his tether somehow undoing itself from his lifejacket in the process. After slamming down onto the canopy, and alarmingly almost rolling off the side of the boat, we managed to grab him and pull him back into the cockpit and down into the saloon. It was pure chaos. We couldn’t hear or see further than 2 metres. Waves came crashing over us and down into the interior, rain and wind pelted us, but we eventually managed to get the boat under control and motor out of the storm. In total, it took over 3 hours to get back to normal conditions. It was a shame that we had to use the engine in our crossing, but for safety reasons, it was understood. Fair to say, I wasn’t able to document this drama.
