For team Tiger Gambas, the Philippine Hobie National Championships (counting as the fourth race of the ongoing Traveller Series) turned out to be the last sailing event for this season.
The crews of 19 registered boats, including three price-winning teams from Hong Kong and two crews from the Philippine National Sailing Team, looked forward to an event-packed sailing weekend at our known turf, Lake Taal.
Nobody was concerned about a lack of wind. The current North Easterly Amihan wind in the Philippines, also known as the trade winds, is blowing with all its might... and beyond! Day one of the two-day event saw a multitude of capsizes. At peak, as many as four boats were floating mast down at the same time! Approaching the windward mark from a different angle than most of the boats, we witnessed three boats capsizing in a sudden gust. They flipped like domino blocks as 25 invisible knots of wind speed swept over them.
It was not long before we encountered our first, second, and third capsize. To my surprise, I didn’t panic as I used to for the longest time. We fell, we swam, we climbed back onto the hull, and we right the boat. I even laughed when, grabbing the dolphin striker to prevent the boat from capsizing into the opposite direction, I was plugged out of the water like a feather. I guess 110 pounds don’t make much of a difference in these wind conditions.
After four exhausting races, we called it a day, licked our wounds, and retired early.
Day 2 greeted us with even more wind. Our unchanged battle cry was “mast up”! And we did... for the first 15 minutes of the first race. Approaching the windward mark a gust lifted our starboard hull. Higher and higher we went until finally the boat toppled. From my hiked out and fully extended position I had a two-meter drop ahead of me. My choice was hitting the mast, the boom, or falling onto the jib sheet. I think I hit all of the above, and with the biggest impact the port hull.
It’s interesting how hard it is to recall the details of a capsize. All I can remember is the sudden pain in my left wrist, the numbness of my fingers, seeing blood from an unknown source, and my words “I think I broke my arm”. I sure enough did. However, that didn’t matter much since we had to get our boat up and sail it back to shore. The wind didn’t show any mercy at all, threatening us to pitch pole on our downwind homecoming.
Several boats limped back to shore, dis-masted, with broken parts and pieces, and with shell-shocked crew. The regatta was cancelled after that race... our last race for at least eight weeks.
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