Incident off Cape Town: The sailors tell

7:29 PM Thu 14 Oct 2010 GMT

'Marius Saunders on Sunset Cruiser showing the steering column which was ripped from the deck' .

The steering was the first to go when the main sheet wrapped around the steering pedestal and as the wind caught the sail it ripped the pedestal from the deck, bending the wheel. Trying to make port under motor, a green wave from the seven metre swells came over the back and completely drenched the electronics, radios, everything. 'Were we not clipped on and were our harnesses not heavy duty, we all would have been washed off the yacht,' said Marius Saunders, describing the storm that eventually caused them to call distress in the Southern Ocean off Capetown this week. ...

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by Michelle Solomon, Daily Dispatch/Sail-World