Poor Dave

What a 24 hours it has been for Mission Performance, already the Southern Ocean has given us an idea of how important safety is on board! Unfortunately, one of our new leg 3 crew members, Dave, was injured yesterday morning, seriously enough that he had to leave the boat as soon as possible.

The race start from Cape Town was exciting, with us and Jamaica Get All Right making the decision to take the route in the shadow of Table Mountain where there is a notorious wind hole, while the rest of the fleet went all the way round the wind hole and after a few hours we came out near the front of the fleet. The next day the sea state was becoming rough and wind strength was increasing meaning we had to change from our Yankee 2 to our Yankee 3, I had already been swept across the deck twice by large waves but fortunately I was clipped on, a few of us were positioned on the foredeck with Dave on the bow of the boat preparing to take off the hanks of the sail, as he was positioning himself a large wave came over the bow and pushed his calve on to a metal cleat (a horizontal fixing on the boat where you tie lines off) which went straight through his leg. Making his way to the back of the boat it became clear it was quite a serious injury by the amount of blood coming from his trousers. Below deck, Bee, our medic on board, and Matt assessed the injury and it was decided that we had to change our course and sail to Port Elizabeth where Dave would get off.

Towards the afternoon the sea state got rougher, with around 5-6 metre high waves and gusts of wind reaching up to 58 knots! Not many of us had experienced weather like this so at times it was quite scary, especially when it was dark and we couldn't see the waves coming. However, we made it safely to the bay near Port Elizabeth this afternoon where we met a sea rescue rib with 5 rescuers, one of them climbed on board and then helped Dave into the rib. It was very sad saying goodbye to Dave and even though we had only been sailing with him for a few days he was already a key member of our team. For now we have decided that even though we have lost a lot of ground over the past 24 hours, we will try to be as safe as possible but try to push the boat as hard as we can in the hope we can make up the ground lost and say at least we crossed the Southern Ocean.