25/11 07:00 UTC the dinette of JK sail is invaded by silence and by 220 square meters of pitch black canvas.
From 00:00 the ocean started roaring.
20 – 25 knots of downwind make JK fly at 10 fixed knots with peaks at 13.
The record was set by Simone Stolfo, the youngest of the group and former instructor at the nautical club of Naples and secretary of the Cilento A Vela sailing club.
The moon that accompanied us in the last few nights hides behind the clouds.
Sea and wind remind us that we are in the kingdom of Neptune: the home of whales and giant squid and we can only be guests here.
But Jk is in 100% race trim and his crew does not give up one meter: we are at full mainsail pulled by a 220 m2 gennaker.
The first to not give up are the girls.
Jennifer and Cristiana two monoliths demonstrating that the weaker sex is a pure invention of men, they are weak.
The wind mounts and with it the sea and…. BOOM a cannon shot in the night frees the black ghost.
The wall that has always kept the Gennaker in chain breaks out, allowing it to fly free.
The sound was very strong a total reset for the whole team’s nervous system.
I raise my eyes to the sky and I am enchanted by such great beauty.
The gennaker, now free, flies like a kite at a height of almost 30 meters.
His is a hypnotic dance that kidnaps me and makes me regress to my 10 years.
10 years, that age when a kite was enough to make me fly with the imagination and dream one day of plowing the ocean.
But tomorrow is today.
And that is not a kite but “no fuck is trouble”, exclaims Michele De Giovanni rushed to the deck together with Lorenzo Castaldo and Luca Cafasso at that moment on standby.
In 30 seconds the whole JK team is ready on deck.
The procedures worked.
The lowered downwind with the two bowmen Cafasso and Stolfo in position, Castaldo in the cockpit, De Giovanni at the helm and mainsail and I recovering the now indomitable sheet of my kite.
In strong winds we have given ourselves the rule that there are no OFF groups, the only modes allowed are On and Stand By.
In Stand By it is allowed to sleep but only dressed and ready to handle any emergency in 30 seconds.
30 seconds to enjoy a coffee, 30 seconds to understand if Vasco’s last song will be yet another success or will be forgotten.
What is certain is that we will not forget this night.
Once out in the cockpit, a flashing light moves away from JK floating on the water.
A man overboard?!?!?
With terror in our eyes we quickly count and understand that we are all aboard.
The gennaker sheet also wanted to free the stern ring.
This is too much. Stop! The regime changes. The party is over.
As if we were at the zoo from the Madagascar film all JK’s equipment wanted to get rid of.
This is not allowed!
In less than a minute we literally flew to the bow of the boat and grabbed the gennaker by forcefully pushing it into the dinette.
Here is the invader, it is he, the Gennaker!
Now hunched over the sail like two surgeons Simone Stolfo and Polo Manuel are putting the chains back on a gennaker that for a few minutes was back as a kite.
Taken from the logbook of the commander of Jk sail Luca Davoli