On the water, yesterday afternoon (August 7, 2016) I (David Knox) was very fortunate to be rescued by four of your sailors.
Sailing on a broad reach at speed, my mast had exploded with a big ‘bang’, into two pieces with a splintered mess of carbon fibre in the middle. This left me sitting out in the middle of Lac Deschênes, blowing the Fox40 whistle on my life jacket and waving my arms.
These four NSC sailors heard my distress whistle from a significant distance away. They came and rescued me, pulling me and all of my disabled gear from the water. They then delivered me safely back to a dock at BYC, navigating some fairly healthy chop in the process, to squeeze through the relatively narrow entry of the BYC harbour in fine style.
I would like to thank them very much for their good seamanship and also for giving up an hour or so of their own sailing time to complete the whole operation. I would also like to thank them for the extremely good-natured way in which the whole process was completed. Unfortunately, while I gave them my own name, I don’t remember any of them giving me theirs. I wasn’t thinking well enough at the time to note their boat name down either.
Therefore, thanks very much to you all, whoever you are. I hope that this note gets to you somehow and I would actually appreciate it if you could get in touch with me and let me know your names. Regardless, I wish you all “Safe and Happy Sailing” and for doing your club proud. I am very grateful.
David Knox, Ottawa
Note from the Editor: The rescuers were later identified as Brent Landry and Kathy McEachern (the admiral) on Eloquence, and Dave Smith and Christine Johnson on Inconceivable.
