AC sailor run down and trapped by rudder

[rbgarr]

"One of Team Shosholoza’s key sailors, Charles Nankin, 28, of Cape Town,
is in post operative spinal recovery in a German hospital after he was
accidently knocked off the yacht and hit by the rudder while racing in a
Grand Prix sailing event in Kiel, Germany, last Sunday. Nankin, had gone
forward on yacht Shosholoza RSA 48 to help pull in the spinnaker while
rounding a leeward mark when he was hit unexpectedly by the foresail as
it came across the bow and flung him overboard.

Because the boat was turning he was pushed under water and hit his back
against the rudder as the stern swung around. Trapped by the force of
the water, his body became wrapped around the rudder but miraculously he
found super-human strength to push himself off and surface within 30
seconds. He was immediately picked up by the Shosholoza chase boat and
transferred by ambulance to the University of Schleswig-Holstein’s,
Clinic for Traumatology in Kiel. He underwent a three hour operation,
led by director of the clinic, Dr A. Seekamp, on Monday in which
titanium was used to stabilize his second vertebrae which was fractured
in the incident.

He was sitting up and walked briefly on crutches yesterday (Thursday)
and has no other spinal, neck or cerebral injury. He is expected to
remain in hospital until 20 August after which he will join the rest of
Team Shosholoza at their base in Valencia, Spain. Doctors have advised
that he will need physiotherapy for three months and should be able to
resume normal sports activities after six months."

-from Scuttlebutt.com

[bamamick]

It's a dangerous sport, as I have reason to know. I have a lot of scars to show for more than 30 years of racing, and the bigger the boat the higher the loads and the associated dangers.

One of the boats that I used to crew on had 3/8" glavanised wire rope spliced to yacht braid for genoa sheets. For the first year or so that I sailed on that boat I was one of the grinders. After that I got moved to be the port genoa trimmer. In one race I got popped twice by the weather sheet when it was thrown off rather than fed. Just about got into a fist fight with the other genoa trimmer on a 60' IOR boat during a race! A good friend of mine has a plate in his head and periodic seizures because of an injury suffered on the same boat.

The world of big boat racing has evolved (or perhaps I should say returned to) into a professional's bailiwick, and perhaps that is for the best. These things are designed to be sailed at a very, very high level, and unless you have the time to devote to it it is probably best to steer clear. Maybe if I had sailed with Hwyl or some one else with extensive experience with hydraulics and the heavy loads of offshore big boat racing it would have been better, but we were all kind of thrown into the lurch together and it was not as fun as it perhaps could have been.

Mickey Lake

[Figment]

Resume normal sports activity six months after a spinal fracture?!!!
Damn that's amazing.

[George Roberts]

"he was hit unexpectedly by the foresail as it came across the bow"

I assume the hit was unexpected. was the foresail coming across the bow unexpected?

[S/V Laura Ellen]

It sounds odd to call someone with a spinal fracture "lucky", but lucky he is, could have been a lot worse.

[bamamick]

forgotten about. We did that to a friend of mine one time. He was on the deck cleaning up some rigging and we tacked without him knowing that we were going to do so and winched him right off the boat. He kind of held on to something (can't remember what) until someone could run up and help him.

Mickey Lake

[rbgarr]

...titanium was used to stabilize his second vertebrae which was fractured
in the incident.

Perhaps taken from some broken and scrapped piece of the boat??