Down below, I was taking off my wet weather gear, listening to the comforting thunder of our IMOCA 60 Team Group 4 surfing at 20 knots. In an instant, I found myself crashing forward into the keel bulkhead. It seemed we’d hit a wall of custard. There was no definitive impact, just a sickening deceleration, accompanied by a horrific cracking and grating noise, and then silence.
My co-skipper, Ed Danby, and I were 700 miles from Cartagena, Colombia, and the finish of the 1999 Transat Jacques Vabre. So far the Caribbean Sea had produced some amazing sailing and this night should have been no different. It was warm, overcast and the visibility was good. With very little traffic and over 100 miles from the coast of Venezuela, we were expecting…
