(And the seamanship skills of her crew)
The photographs and essence of the story are taken from Ryan’s Facebook page, where he has many posts about A138 and Sweet Sue.
All photographs are Ryan’s copyright.
Ryan Morley and Michael LeMaitre were determined to attend a wedding in Dorset, sailing A138 Sweet Sue from Guernsey. And to make it more interesting they decided to travel via the West Mersea Regatta, on the East Coast, and compete in the AOA East Coast Race over the August bank holiday.
They set off in good time and then Storm Lilian caught up with them in the eastern English Channel. On passage from Eastbourne towards Dover conditions deteriorated sufficiently to break both Sweet Sue’s rudder and boom. But not their spirit. Ryan and Michael demonstrated great seamanship, and Sweet Sue the excellent seakeeping abilities of the Atalanta, and they made Folkestone where they set about repairs. Amazingly, thanks to Ryan and Michael’s ‘can-do’ attitude and generous support, they were on there way within a few days.
“Craziest sail I’ve ever done (and Micheal). F6 – gusting 40knots. Running tide. Made 26NM in 3hrs 20mins. Exhilarating. Couple of accidental gybes as the 5m waves kept broaching us. Then at noon the boom snapped in two at the preventer like one of Micheal’s toothpicks. 14nm from nearest port. Lashed the boom, dropped sails and headed for shelter. But we made it in. At one point the top of the mast was 3m off the wave that smashed us. Amazing, crazy dangerous sail. Feeling lucky to be in port.”
The AOA Salvaged Parts scheme were able to play a small part with a replacement boom. Richard James, ‘warehouse manager’ for the scheme, spent a lot of time sorting out the right part and packaging it up for the courier. The couriers operate an (expensive) same day service much to Ryan’s delight. A replacement rudder was slightly more time-consuming and achieved thanks to the significant assistance of local woodworker Chris Stone (Park Farm Joinery). The rudder is a non-standard, vertically lifting, six foot long timber blade moving in a slotted rudder stock. He cut a new rudder blade from stock he had in the workshop and Ryan (who is a carpenter himself) then shaped it and fitted it into the rudder stock on the boat.
