Just remebered
I get a lot of injuries from sailing, (see my previous post for the time when I got run over by a motorboat) so here's another I just remembered.

Once when I was out sailing last winter, the wind was fucking good and strong (a rare pleasure where I live) so we went out even though it looked a bit too rough (Force 6ish).

I was positively roaring along, and then suddenly the wind stopped completely. As in pfffft-pop gone. I didn't know that this was one of the main signs a squall was on its way.

A Squall is when you get a big fuckoff gust of wind (up to 50mph) for about a minute. It is characteries by the slight pause in the wind before it hits, and the dazed people saying "What the fuck was that?" afterwards.

Anyway, squall hits, and from a different direction to the old wind. The boom snaps around, catching me full on the face with a loud and scary CRACK.

I wake up 30 seconds later, underwater and tangled in my mainsheet.

I spent another 20 seconds or so undoing the main so I could get to the surface. Those were the scariest 20 seconds of my life.

I wasn't unduly worried about dieing, but I WAS worried about not being able to go home and feed my hamsters.

Poor little buggers.

Oddly enough, I sustained no damage from the boom or my stint underwater. Surpirsing, since I left a dent in the boom, which is a seven foot long, two inch thick piece of pipe.
(DarkLite swallowed my entire undercarriage, Sun 28 Nov 2004, 22:53, Reply)