Around one o'clock yesterday our friends' wooden yacht, Tunis, was dismasted in a collision with a sail training vessel. In a crowded fleet of the Sail Past for the Wooden Boat Festival Tunis found herself in the path of the sailing ship and before she had time to scram the ship's bowsprit had hooked her backstay. Dennis told us last night, over Christine's delicious pasta and a glass of wine, that he must been in the ships wind shadow and lost speed, leaving no time to bear away. The 42 ft yacht was T-boned, crunching the bulwark as well as bringing the rig down. Three Wooden Boat Festival emergency crew, with help from Glen, off Seawind, and Grant, off Apache helped get the sails off, unbolted the rigging and stowed the broken timber mast on deck. (No fault is implied here, and the boat is insured.)

Without the weight of the mast up there, the boat jumped around with a very strange motion last night, in the chop whipped up by strong SSW winds, reported at Tasman Island blowing 44 knots.

Adrienne and I got soaked in the fine, chill rain and salt spray as we banged our way into the wind and over the chop back to our dry warm boat!