On February 17, after his dismasting, we titled: " Conrad Colman, an expert rigger of fortune ". Indeed, the skipper had sent us 2 photos taken with his drone of his makeshift rigging. Photos which show the mastery of this Vendée Globe competitor.
Today he explains in more detail how he went about making this rigging:
"To begin with, you have to go back eight years, to August 2008. It was a particularly hot summer on the Isle of Wight where I was taking part in Cowes Week, the biggest regatta of the season with over 1000 boats on the water. I was sailing on a 52-foot boat belonging to the GBR Yacht Racing Academy and instead of going to the bar with my crew in the evening, I was going to work at night in a sailmaker's shop.
Medina Sail Care (the name of the sailmaker) is perched on the water's edge and located on the second floor above a marine mechanic shop. It has always been run by Gerry, a friendly South African, a friend to everyone in this small community of Cowes, and used to taking motivated young people under his wing to learn the ropes of the trade.
The guests, a little reddened by sunburn and slightly drunk after celebrating their victory of the day, arrived with a wet spinnaker under their arm. Plooof. The soggy mass fell to the ground and flooded it with salt water. "Can you fix this by tomorrow morning?". We'd then look at the remains of what had once been a perfectly good-looking sail. It was always possible with the same ritual: rinsing with fresh water, drying, cleaning with acetone and gluing the new fabrics with double-sided tape and finally sewing. Nothing sticks to a wet, salty sail.
All this to say that to build a new mainsail for my makeshift rig, a great challenge awaited me. I didn't have access to a floor, fresh water, sewing machines, or the help of a colleague! Because I couldn't make reinforcements in my corners that would have allowed my sail to support the navigational loads, I had to find the elements I needed in the remaining pieces of sail.
By turning the sail 90 degrees, I was able to use the existing reef 2 reinforcements for the top and bottom of the sail against the boom and another reinforcement became the clew. I spread out the piece of sail as best I could, rubbed off the salt with clothes, and glued double-sided along the seams for safety. I reinforced the areas where the sail was going to be attached to the boom. Sounds simple, but it took me a whole day... As the forecast is mostly downwind or beam to Les Sables, I spent a bit more time making a horn for the top of the sail to get a bit more sail area. I think this is the only horn sail in the history of makeshift rigging!
I worked on such a small area that I didn't get to see the whole mainsail before hoisting it! It's also because I decided to attach the sail directly to the mast instead of using a halyard to set it up. That added a lot of weight and made it difficult to get the boom in place vertically. I won't be able to lower it, but I won't have to take a reef in the coming days!
In comparison, setting up the storm jib was quite easy: unfurl the sail, change the rope and hoist. It's really good that the IMOCA class requires such a small sail (19.5 m2) on board. I've never seen this sail used outside of dismasting!
Now all I have to do is get to Les Sables before I look like a skeleton! I haven't got much to eat except soup packets and biscuits and emergency rations..."
