Recovery in St. Nazzere

Sept. 08, 2005

Recovery from Demasting.

I am not as good of a writer as Erin is, so I will be brief.We are now here in St. Nazzare France, recovering from this disaster. And believe me, this is no simple task.

Photo by David Castle

This crew, however, is exactly indicative of the reputation of the Pride of Baltimre II crews: In short, World Class and Top Notch. We have all rallyed together with the dedication to the ship that you would expect to see on a vessel as fine as the “Pride”.

Photo by David Castle

The plan is as follows: Clean up the wreckage while the office makes arrangements to get us new spars made, then stand by for further news. The hopes are that we will fix the boat here in Europe & then sail her back to Baltimore in the early spring, and almost all of us are planning on sticking it out to the finish.

Photos by David Castle

Meanwhile, we are just keeping busy working on the boat, having beers after work (last night we had a “Survivors” party), and exploring the community that will be our home for some time.

Without further investigation, what we have is just speculation. Erin has gone into more details about the chain of events that followed after the bowsprit broke, but as you can imagine.. Bowsprit carries away - Main causes us to round up even more - Fore-Topsail goes aback - Foremast [with no forward support] falls aft and takes Mainmast with it.

The result: All spars lost! The lucky thing is that NOT A SINGLE PERSON WAS INJURED. Just seeing the photos of the carnage on deck, can you believe it?

More to come.