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Oops

The setting: a Sunday afternoon in New York Harbor, we approach the G1 buoy south of Governor's Island on a tight reach to practice a leeward mark rounding. Twenty feet before the buoy, a big gust causes us to broach and slide into the buoy heeled about 75 degrees. The spinnaker gets caught on the buoy, so we blow the sheets and the halyard.

All photographs © 1998 Ramon Caceres. All rights reserved.


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That's me assessing the situation after we jibed back and unclipped the spinnaker halyard before it yanked the mast down.


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Heading back under sail to put Scott on the buoy to get the spinnaker.


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Scott climbing the buoy.


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Scott trying to get the spinnaker free.


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It caught on the seagull spikes, so Scott had to cut it away.