Damian Craig, our good friend and chief honcho on the J/125 Nereid had to drop out of the SoCal 300 (Santa Barabara – San Diego). Here is what he said happened:
We hit a huge Mola Mola, going from 17 knots to 5/Luckily nobody was seriously hurt. The driver was thrown almost completely over the wheel, whacked his wrist on the traveler and his ribs, and one guy was thrown into a bulkhead. I was trimming so just slammed into primary.
Slowed down, did a check of the rudder, keel bolts, bulkheads, and bilge for water. Didn’t find anything. Checked the kelp cutter it was frozen. Got back up to speed the boat felt really weird. So we put a flashlight on a boat hook and checked the keel through our scope. Not sure about the rudder, it seems ok but it hit that in the way by as well.
There was kelp cutter and fairing hanging off. It was making really bad noises. Hit it at like 8:30 dropped out like 10. Didn’t want to make it worse – now headed to the boat yard Transpac is less than 4 weeks away.
