Seven crew turned up of Friday 1st September for the last CBYA Hobie Cat day this year. We hired two Hobie Getaways (17 foot cats), with Karen Gardner and Hugh Epsom on duty as skippers.

Marion Oprel, Dominique Maes and Guillermo Chico sailed with Karen.

Jutta Whitely and Mitch Yount sailed with Hugh.

The wind was quite gusty, with a fair amount of chop on the water, so the crew all became pretty wet!

About 30 minutes after leaving the marina, with Marion at the helm, the port double shrouds failed and the mast came down, narrowly missing Dominique’s head!

Hugh’s Hobie sailed over to them to make sure that no-one was hurt, and stayed nearby until the rescue inflatable arrived, with Vicky at the helm. The demasted Hobie was then towed back to the marina, and the crew rescued. Vicky expressed amazement that the double shroud arrangement failed, as they are checked daily, and this has hardly ever happened in the past!

Hugh’s Hobie Cat continued to sail with Mitch at the helm, covering some distance before returning to the marina to join the others. Here are the stats…

We enjoyed a couple of post-sailing drinks back on terra firma, and Karen’s crew considered themselves lucky that nobody was hurt!

CBYA Hobie Cat sailing will run again during July and August next year. Make sure that you correctly subscribed to receive Hobie Cat group newsletters if you would like to join us.

Hugh