Tom Cunliffe

ast week I was in a hurry and through no fault of my own - for once - found myself at the wrong end of a stiff breeze. I’d been motorsailing hard to windward for an hour or so when I popped below for a log entry. As the boat leapt along making her reasonably comfortable way upwind I hung on to the hand-holds and had jammed myself into the navigator’s seat when I realised that all was not as it should have been. Usually, your boat slips you the wink she’s got a problem by sound and/or sight. I mean, you can’t miss the ‘bang’ as a lower shroud lets go or the spectacle of a mast bending like a banana, but this was a different source of sensory input. All had been well on deck as the clean, sweet wind whipped the