Ronnie Makes it Back

(See the post below for the back info on Ronnie)

Here is the latest:
This thread is entertaining.

First off, i've got to make it very much publicly known that I probably could not (and would not) have done this without Ed McCoy. There is not a better bperson that I could have been on the boat with in such a shitty situation. He is one of my best friends, and we got along better during and now after the ordeal than even before. He is a delivery skipper/ skilled racer/ general sailboat bad ass. I've been sailing for 2.5 years. That's it. Whenever you're new to a sport, you have to have a mentor and a role model and for me, it's Ed. He was the first and only person I ever approached about doing this delivery with. If not him, I probably would have returned solo as well. So thanks dude.

Having said that, there were a few things in this thread I would address:

Water ballast was disabled for race, and was not able to be used.

Boat is stable like a motherfucker. Scot Jutson designed a good boat in my opinion. Something on the boat failed. Was it corroded keel bolts? Shitty welds? Bad construction? Previous groundings? Hell if I know. It broke, but the boat itself is in my opinion a good boat and a well built one at that. I put 5,000 ocean miles on that boat this summer, mostly solo, and I usually pounded the shit out of it. Never felt anything less than rock solid until last Wednesday night. We will haul out tomorrow and maybe learn something from it. Boat is getting a new keel, designed by another respected Mount Gay 30 designer and *should* be back in action for next year's Bermuda 1-2. If not, SHTP 2012.

Major, major props and gratitude to everyone who showed up to greet us at the gate. Garrett Greenhalgh and Drew Harper (my employers at Spinnaker Sailing) greeted us in the SC 50 with thai food and booze. Ladonna and Rob fro Latitude are great friends, and Adam, Ben, Lucy, Gary and all the SHTP community was just awesome in coming to greet us. That really meant a lot to me. And like someone else said about Don, the boat's owner. Yeah, he's one of the good guys. I was pissed off for some reason about the keel falling off, but we sat down and talked in private today and I feel a lot better about things. The guy is a great guy and afforded me a great life experience this summer. So thanks to everyone.

As you can see, on this day i'm happy to be alive and I just love everything and everyone. That shit was traumatic (in my mind), but we pulled through. The stress alone made me drop 10 pounds in the last week.