It was 27 November 2007, Walvis Bay, Namibia. We had overstayed one sponsorship and still hadn’t shown the potential of Sailrocket, in which we were trying to break the 40-knot barrier.
It had never occurred to me that the project might fail, but with four days left to get a result, the worst had happened – we’d wiped out. We’d had a nagging problem with steerage and on this occasion, the boat had spun out of control into the beach. The wind got under the wing, picked it up and …..