I miss sailing with other people. Singlehanders are not my natural habitat, but family and work demands being what they are, I’ve hitched my harness to the Musto Skiff wagon these past two years.  

It has not been an easy relationship, but gradually Musto Skiff and I are getting to know each other. I’m sure I have shocked and surprised some who might have expected me to master the Musto with relative ease, after a fairly successful period of helming Laser 5000s and 49ers and crewing International 14s. It hasn’t been such a smooth transition though, to put it mildly.  

I know what’s required, but putting the knowledge into action has been much harder than anticipated. With limited time on the water, practising your manoeuvres in your head - mental rehearsal, as the experts call it - is certainly useful. But time in your mind - it’s no real substitute for time in the boat.  

The thing is, the Musto Skiff is like a horse. It can smell fear and uncertainty. Just when you think you’ve mastered tacking in a breeze, it can come back and bite you. Same goes for gybing, a job that seems to require the many arms of Buddha to execute it properly.  

Gradually I seem to be reaching some agreement with the Musto Skiff, in a narrow band of say, 8 to 14 knots of breeze. In those winds, Musto Skiff accepts some level of competence. Either side of that range, it’s another story. Musto Skiff is still the boss.  

Sailing in a strict one-design singlehander, it’s a harsh place to be. As any Laser sailor will know, there is no equipment or other person who can be scapegoated for your errors. It’s all on you. But the Musto Skiff Worlds in Weymouth were awesome fun. The camaraderie between the 105 competitors was fantastic. It was great to be in among the buzz of Weymouth, with the place packed out with Olympic stars in the final throes of their preparations.  

The funny thing was, the Olympic stars seemed more interested in us than we in them. One Polish windsurfer said we were so lucky to be doing what we do, sailing for the sheer fun of it. Not being paid for it, but not having to treat it like a job, either. He was actually jealous of us. So I told him to get the Olympics out the way and then come and do some proper sailing in a Musto Skiff!  

On the other hand, a recent message from Richard ‘Taff’ Owens, the chairman of the Laser 5000 Association, served as a shocking reminder of the risks involved in high performance sailing. The dangers don’t manifest themselves too often, but when they do, the consequences can be devastating. Taff related the tale of two friends who were borrowing his spare 5000. Matthew Blacksell and Jamie Thomas were out training a couple of days before the Nationals at Dale in Pembrokeshire. Taff reported: “Unfortunately, as a result of a capsize to leeward, Matt was thrown into the main, caught in the shroud (we believe) by his trapeze harness and as the boat inverted, he was trapped.  

“Because they were training and away from the club race circuit, no rescue boat was immediately on hand, and Jamie tried in vain to right the boat. It was inverted for over 10 minutes. When rescue did get to them, everything humanly possible was done to revive Matt. He was airlifted to the local hospital and after being on life support, he was pronounced dead on Saturday afternoon.” Matt leaves his partner Fleur and young son Noah, who is 18 months old.  

Perhaps an inquest will reveal more details of what happened, but while we wait to find out, please remember to take a knife with you. Who knows if it could have changed the outcome of this incident, but it does remind me of a near fatal accident in a Laser 5000 at Lake Garda back in 1996. I’m afraid I can’t recall their names, but I remember the details of the incident like it was yesterday.  

After a capsize and the boat turning turtle, one of the lads got his foot stuck in a twisted loop of the mainsheet strop. He was tall enough that at full stretch, he could grab the occasional mouthful of air by poking his head out beyond the transom. His team mate had to sit on the bow to raise the transom sufficiently out of the water. Every time he went back to help, the transom sank down and his friend couldn’t grab any air. So the crew had the presence of mind to stay sitting on the bow, hoping help would arrive in time.  

After a few minutes the rescue boat arrived and the trapped sailor was freed, but I remember him telling me afterwards that if he could have cut off his foot he would have done so. Things were that desperate. Of course, if he’d had a knife, he could have cut the mainsheet strop and he’d have been free with relatively little trouble.  

Lake Garda was also the site some years ago of a 49er death, which sounds similar in nature to the recent one in Pembrokeshire, and then there was the drowning of a Tornado sailor in Palma, entrapped at the centre of the upturned trampoline of the catamaran. That was certainly one incident where the presence of a knife would have saved a life.  

For long term readers of Roll Tacks, I apologise for persisting in bringing up this topic from time to time. But the 18-foot skiff fleet’s rule - that carrying a knife on the transom is compulsory - is one that really must be adopted more widely in high performance classes.