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Message: <blockquote data-quote="saxyjt" data-source="post: 443687" data-attributes="member: 4401">One of my best friends had a similar misadventure with a sailing boat. His boat had just been delivered to him and he drove back proudly with it on its trailer. As he approached home, he felt the trailer starting to behave strangely behind him and before he could realize something was wrong the whole thing went off and crossed the highway, 5 lanes there, the boat being on its side, completely trashing the hull and it sort of exploded into pieces as it reached the embankments.He was properly insured and had another one built. But we had another adventure with that one as we were facing it around a lake on a 24h looping race... We completed the first loop, starting near the harbour where the starting and finishing lines were, rounding a mark away near a church saved from the waters as they created that artificial lake (it is a lake used to avoid overflow from the Seine in the winter season) and we were doing fine. Then we tacked almost in front of the harbour, but we heard a strange noise and the boat didn't lift back after the tack... It just kept rolling into the other side. My 3 crew mates went swimming while I climbed on the windward side of the hull. Dry!We had lost the keel of this experimental ultralight displacement boat. It was a moveable keel, but it wasn't obviously built right! The next few hours, after my mates were (painfully) salvaged by inexperienced firemen and I cracked a few ribs trying to bring the sunken past and sails back up, were spent cleaning the mess and recovering our soaked clothes and useless mobile phones from the near wreck.I had another troubled sailing experience with him a few years before, but I was not the black sheep or the one bringing bad luck. He retired early, living in some investments he made and decided to hunt for his dream boat. He had already owned a few very interesting one, including a 55' one designed trimaran that was a perfect blend of cruising comfort and performance, but his wife didn't like sailing so he sold it. He had her cross the atlantic before wedding her, but she passed the test... He was worth it, financially!Anyways, his retirement didn't go as planned. First he spent a couple of years looking after his dying father, then a couple of years after buying his dream boat, he died of a nasty cancer he didn't see coming as he attributed his loss of appetite to the limited variety of his recently adopted vegan diet...</blockquote>

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