Ten years ago today while on passage to French Polynesia the unimaginable happened and a catastrophic rigging failure brought down our mast. We were 450 nautical miles from land with no way to carry on. Luckily we were not injured and aside from the loss of the rig, the boat was still sound. We limped back to the Galapagos on our tiny engines and eventually to Costa Rica where six months later we were rerigged. The giant lemons life threw at us that day gave us the lemonade of a year in Central America and the gift of new friends and cousins we hadn’t met before. Almost exactly a year after the dismasting we finally made landfall in the Marquesas. We still count that day as one of the best ever. We hope we will always carry on.
You can read the original account of the dismasting and our recovery starting here.
I initially found your blog through Dirk, who sent me an email to check out your dismasting waaaay back then. Weird how things work. So I just spent the last 3 days rereading from your link all the way through to 2022. Weird. We know so many of the same people, went to so many of the same places, at almost the same time, yet crossed paths only twice.
I do want to say thanks for all the memories of those times and places and people you blogged about. I am still, after all these years, a dedicated escapee and I hope you blog forever.
Wayne
SV Journey (retired)
Definitely weird. And you’re a glutton for punishment, but thanks for the kind words. We aim to keep going until forcibly detained.