Booms hurt

Though to be rather literal, booms don't feel a thing, it's people that get hurt.

Up till then everything had gone rather well - a week's sailing in which every manoeuvre, every hoist or drop, had gone to plan. On the final day we had blasted home upwind at over 7 - 8 knots most of the way. The mooring buoy was almost in sight and the week's sail was coming to an end, when we had to do what turned out to be the penultimate tack of the week.

"Ready about?" asks I, "ready" they respond, so "tacking" I say, pushing the tiller to one side.

Maybe I was leaning a little forward because then there was a bang to the side of my head, an "ow!" and I was on the floor of the cockpit with my glasses despatched to Davy Jones's locker.

Everyone was rather concerned, not the least me.

"Did you see stars?" asks the skipper.

"No" I say, "just the boom, very close up"

"Do you feel nauseousness?"

"No, rather hungry actually"

I may have got away with that one. However be on the look our for strange behaviour - inventing Australian journalists with unlikely initials springs to mind.

It might be a good time to quote Sergeant Phil Esterhaus from the Hill Street Blues:

     "Let's be careful out there"