I found my self having to de-rig after the wind sunddenly dropped late in the afternnon and the current was taking me into the bay, seeing this my brother who had made it to the point before the wind dropped jumped on his board and paddled out.
He helped me seperate my mast and we began to paddle ashore, I looked at my hand which was still bleeding after i tore open a calis in a wipe out. Thats all we need is blood in the water i thought and suddenly this black what looked like a fin thrashed through the water about 5m from us and this big black object was coming straight for us.
What the f*!k is that as we sat up on our boards and grabbed the mast halves ready to fend it off.
But as it passed under us we were releived to see a manta ray.
Although after that we didnt hesitate in getting to shore.

Time to revive this topic!!!
I had an incident on Saturday that didn,t involve big fish or big waves , but it was scary none the same .
I was racing my Formula in a nice choppy 20 knots on Port Phillip . Screaming downwind to the bottom mark on Starboard tack I had the Oz and World Champ 14 ft Skiff coming at me full bore on port . Decision time , go around him or force him to gybe inside me . Stuff it , I,m racing , so I started screaming STARBOARD . He pulls off a perfect panic Gybe which puts me about a board lenght downwind of him and just a bit in front . S..t , theres no wind behind that 600 sq foot of sail area . I stop , he doesn,t !!!
Chrunch !!!!! A carbon fiber wing right in the middle of my back .F..k that hurt !!!! Then a huge amount of pain from my front foot which was stuck firmly in the strap . I was face down in the water and something had me pinned . Not sure what or why but I couldn,t get my foot out or twist around to get a descent breath of air .
S..t , I,m in trouble here . Then something grabs my foot and wrenches it out of the strap and I,m free . The forward hand of the 14 is in the water yelling , are you OK .
They had pretty much capsized on top of me and something had me pinned . Thank ch..st he saw I was in a spot of bother and helped .
The moral . If something bigger is bearing down on you forget racing rules , the rule of the jungle applies . Get out of the way !!!
Hopefully I,ll be off the crutches tommorrow .

quote:

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Originally posted by mr love

Time to revive this topic!!!
I had an incident on Saturday that didn,t involve big fish or big waves , but it was scary none the same .
I was racing my Formula in a nice choppy 20 knots on Port Phillip . Screaming downwind to the bottom mark on Starboard tack I had the Oz and World Champ 14 ft Skiff coming at me full bore on port . Decision time , go around him or force him to gybe inside me . Stuff it , I,m racing , so I started screaming STARBOARD . He pulls off a perfect panic Gybe which puts me about a board lenght downwind of him and just a bit in front . S..t , theres no wind behind that 600 sq foot of sail area . I stop , he doesn,t !!!
Chrunch !!!!! A carbon fiber wing right in the middle of my back .F..k that hurt !!!! Then a huge amount of pain from my front foot which was stuck firmly in the strap . I was face down in the water and something had me pinned . Not sure what or why but I couldn,t get my foot out or twist around to get a descent breath of air .
S..t , I,m in trouble here . Then something grabs my foot and wrenches it out of the strap and I,m free . The forward hand of the 14 is in the water yelling , are you OK .
They had pretty much capsized on top of me and something had me pinned . Thank ch..st he saw I was in a spot of bother and helped .
The moral . If something bigger is bearing down on you forget racing rules , the rule of the jungle applies . Get out of the way !!!
Hopefully I,ll be off the crutches tommorrow .

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Wow. you're a lucky man!

there's nothing worse than being pinned underwater

I hear the a couple of guys go windsurfing naked(you know who you are)that sounds scary.

You mean it wasnt you?..............sorry i couldnt resist, mate that guy has cut everyone up at some point and then quotes the"law of the sea" like its the Sydney to Hobart when your derigging,still its all the characters that make it a great sport you have millionaires like yourself next to guys on the dole,140kg builders,70yrs old retired guys, all have their moment of glory.....must be my turn soon!