The bulb

The keel bulb

The keel

The bulb at the tip of the 1.7 m stainless steel fin weighs 360 kg. It is 2:1 elliptical in cross section, has a laminar flow shape and the rear part flattens out to a "beaver tail".

"So I still keep going, and put the smaller kite up, but something goes wrong in the hoist, the boat lurches to windward, and the kite is flapping crazily in the breeze - the spinnaker sheet clips then undo themselves and I've got 50 square metres of spi flying out in the front of the boat with almost no way of retrieving it. I broach the boat, blow the halyard and manage to grab some of it.....hanging on to the this on the foredeck and then stretching back to release the halyard, it starts to come in. The halyard jams halfway, and I find myself being lifted off the foredeck by the kite!

Eventually it comes down, and I literally crawl back to the cockpit, shove it down the hatch, and go to sleep. The boat sails on under pilot and main alone - not very race trim. But its time for a time out."