Don't under estimate a Swiss Army Knife and an Eagle Scout

Tiki Blue is back in the race after the catastrophic  breakage of its spinnaker pole late last night or should I say early this morning.  After multiple roundups and downs in heavy breeze and a chaotic sea state., our fore guy ran through the blocks, which let the pole be flogged along with kite during one of the many violent round ups. 1.5 feet at the mast end of the pole was the victim. But the hit to morale was worse!.

Depressed, thinking our race was over, after a record days run, we un furled the jib and ran Expedition models that said we would only arrive a day later than with the kite. We all slept in and ignored our regular watch schedule.

After breakfast the pit crew led by Captain Digger, Dr Probe and Pig Pen  explored what was first thought to be a hopeless fix  As Tiki luck would have it, our carbon hacksaw blade was able to cleanly cut off the damaged section of the carbon tube, which just left us looking for a tool to cut four 1/4" holes.in hard as rock carbon.  After experimenting fruitlessly with corkscrews and such, Ryan Troxel our trusty Eagle Scout pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his bag with a reaming tool. -- and it worked -- yeah!.

So the A Team lives to fight another day - despite our compromised pole length