"4ft of very fast moving mast pierced the deckhead"

Curses. Gartmore's dismasting upset Ollie Dewar's plans for luncheon

A wet ride for all concerned...

The halyards, sheets, running backstays and forestays proved less of a physical challenge although it was impossible not to become entangled and dragged across the deck by the sinking mast. After about 45 minutes we had cleared everything, leaving the mast and sails connected to the boat by one shroud.

As we hammered the pin free from the chain plate we watched them sinking to the bottom of The North Atlantic with mixed emotions: relief that we had successfully cut away the broken mast, concern that we were now without any mobility (the drive shaft on the engine had seized) and incredulity that we had just sent upwards of £100,000 of high-tech, beautifully engineered gear to settle uselessly in the sticky mud 4,000 meters below us in an area called, inexplicably, The Porcupine Abyssal Plain.

Over the next four hours we toiled until dark; patching the ragged hole in the deck with a spare carbon hatch cover, clearing the snake-harvest of redundant ropes from the deck and the disgusting task of mopping up the spilt diesel from the ruptured fuel tank. This done we contacted Falmouth Coastguard to register our position and status.

We were fortunate on a number of counts. Predominantly in the lack of serious injuries, but also the 80ft mast pierced the deck at such an angle to be brought to a halt by the top of the keel box - one of the strongest and most heavily reinforced points of the boat. Had the mast's path varied by as little as one and a half feet in any direction we would have witnessed a profound display of Newton's Second Law (F=ma) as the mast smashed through, exiting at the bottom of the hull, skewering the boat and sinking us fairly quickly.

I was also extremely grateful for the effects of adrenaline. Not only did this supply us with seemingly limitless reserves of energy, but induced a mental clarity and calmness that without doubt contributed to our safety. The whole dismasting debacle was not without humour, though this may be hard to imagine on the heaving, pitching and chaotic deck of a severely stricken yacht. Had an audio recording been made of the event an eavesdropper could almost mistake the episode for nothing more dramatic than a vigorous afternoon's punting on The River Cam.

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