An Inconvenient Hurdle

Comfort is an interesting concept. The thing with comfort is that it is relative; over time a person may become comfortable in the most seemingly uncomfortable situations as they learn and adapt to the requirements. An extreme example of this is Amar Bharati, the Indian monk who has held his hand in the air for 45 years as a sign of dedication to the god Shiva. Due to his extreme perseverance, his mind and body have morphed over time to accommodate this and now he’s entirely comfortable in this seemingly agonizing position. 

Once someone becomes comfortable in unusual positions, they also experience a shift in perspective. Over time it becomes difficult for them to realize how strange their comfort level is, after all when it is such a normality in their life, and often the lives of those around them, it seems strange that others don’t feel the same way. You see this in athletes competing in extreme sports. With the Winter Olympics happening right now the perfect example is ski Jumping. To the average onlooker it is utter insanity as they fly hundreds of feet through the sky. Yet to the athletes and coaches it is their life, something they practice and work on perfecting every day. The same goes for many different professions, from F1 drivers going flat out through “Eau Rouge” to corporate lawyers working 100+ hours a week. Over time these daunting tasks become par for the course.

I would say that I have been aware of this for quite some time now, and in a way when you are training to be an Olympian this “extreme” base level of operation is a necessity. You aren’t aiming to be good, or even great, but rather the best of the best, and for that you need to be operating on a level that is beyond normality. You need to be comfortable in the most uncomfortable situations. You need to be able to head out in gale conditions without batting an eye. I guess I just forgot that sometimes what I do can be dangerous. I understand that there is a certain level of abnormality to the fact that I get excited by 25 knot winds and 3 meter swell, but after years of sailing the Laser in all conditions and nothing bad ever happening to me or anyone around me I guess I just felt a certain level of invincibility. 

On the 7th of February our group here in Malta had looked at the forecast and identified the wind to be coming from the perfect direction for a downwind day. This means with the wind at 23-25 knots from the Northeast we would load our boats onto a trailer and drive them up to the Mellieha on the North end of the island so we could have a long downwind session back to our base In Valetta Harbour. This is something that we do occasionally, and with down winds targeted as the main focus for our winter training block in Malta they were becoming increasingly regular. These sessions are always a blast. Full speed all the way, surfing down massive swells and getting to focus on downwind technique without needing to sail for hours upwind. The whole idea of it was to develop our comfort in what many find to be uncomfortable conditions. 

We got up to the North end of the island, unloaded the boats and launched at our regular spot before grouping and reaching out of the bay into the Mediterranean. With the wind at a steady 25 knots and swell having built up through the night, the conditions were no doubt big, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for our group at this time of year and certainly not even close to the biggest we had seen before. It was perfect for a little bit of fun.  

After reaching a few Kilometers offshore we started to head down wind. I had my back leg locked in underneath the hiking strap and pressing on the leeward side of the boat as I surfed down a big wave. As a gust hit, I lost my balance and the boat flipped over on top of me. This is something that happens sometimes and every time it has happened to me before there’s been nothing to worry about other than a bit of a bruised ego. Unfortunately, this time when my upper body hit the water at the speed I was going it ripped me out of the boat and the force of my body twisted through to my knee where my leg was still caught beneath the strap. It happened very quickly but what I remember is a loud pop and instant pain. I was then laying on my back in the water unable to swim with waves coming over top of me as I watched the wind blow my boat further and further away from me. It’s weird the thoughts that go through your mind when these kinds of things happen. For me the first thought after the pain was “shit, I lost my hat” and then “I wonder if I can still save it”. After about 20 seconds of that I realized that my boat was quite a way away and I was unable to swim. I quickly realized I better start yelling for help. I was quite lucky that just after I had wiped out, the same gust had knocked over my training partner Campbell. After a few minutes had passed he had recovered from his capsize and though he wasn’t close he noticed that my boat was still upside down and I was floating in the water about 50 meters away. He was able to sail back upwind and pull me into his boat. At this point my coach Alex had realized that something was wrong as well and came all the way back up wind to where we were.

We are lucky that in Alex we have a coach that was campaigning for the Olympics himself only 6 years ago. Usually this means that he is able to hop in the boat and show us what he means when he is trying to explain specific techniques. In this case however it was very lucky as I was unable to do much of anything other than sit down in a rib and yell in pain with every wave. The onus then fell on Alex to sail my boat in for me. We were still over 10 kilometers of downwind sailing away from home. The only way to describe the next hour for me is sheer misery. I was absolutely freezing having been floating in the water for what I can only assume was between 5 and 10 minutes, every wave the boat bounced over was met with significant pain in my knee and I had to stay alongside the sailors to make sure nothing else went wrong as they finished the long downwind leg. The adrenaline that came along with this whole situation had me feeling just good enough that I was nervous that I was being a little dramatic. In fact, it wasn’t until I pulled the RIB up to the dock an hour and bit after the wipeout that I realized I was completely unable to stand.

At this point my friend Charlie who is a coach at sail coach and nice man who happened to be walking by helped (basically carried) me out of the rib and onto a step by the dock where Charlie accurately pointed out “mate I think we better get you to the hospital. ” Unfortunately that was the only thing we could do.

So, Charlie loaded me into an Uber and off to the emergency room we went. Now I’ve had some long waits in emergency rooms before but as it turns out when you show up unable to walk and in dripping wet sailing gear, they get you to a doctor relatively quickly. After an hour or so we got in front of a doctor who after some preliminary examination he said that I likely tore a ligament and would need surgery, however the only way to confirm the damage was with an MRI which would take two weeks to order. This was devastating. With Palma 2 months and the World Championships 4 months away, this would mean I was questionable for both and if I did need surgery, I would need it as soon as possible to have any chance at recovering in time. Luckily for me, my Mum had been nagging me the summer before to renew my travel health insurance, something I was admittedly reluctant to do (thank God for mums) but that meant I was able to get an MRI done privately. I was lucky enough to book that last one available that day. And then all that was left to do was wait for the results.

The next day the results came back, and thankfully they were good. It was a Grade 1 MCL sprain and lots of bruising on the bone which meant no surgery was needed. All the doctor ordered was lots of rest and to keep off it as much as possible. Recovery time 3-5 weeks.

So that is basically where I am now. I’m on day 11 of recovery and in all honesty, I’m bored out of my mind. I don’t think I have stayed this stationary in my entire life. Even when I was in quarantine last year, I had a spin bike and a hiking bench to maintain some level of activity. In the past 3 or 4 days I have regained my ability to walk without crutches though with a significant limp, and while there have been steady improvements every day, I still need to be extremely careful so as not to take any steps in the wrong direction (no pun intended). I have been slowly working my way through the book I’m reading (Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky) which I’m enjoying but is so dark I can only really take for an hour or two at a time, and I’m watching ungodly amounts of YouTube. The fact of the matter is I bloody miss sailing. I reckon this is the hardest part of the recovery coming up as I will be 70-80% good and it will be very tempting to try to get back to normal training before I am truly 100% but I need to be sure that I don’t get back in the boat too soon and have another setback. At this point it’s a game of damage limitation 

The plan at this point is to try to get back to training in the last few days of February and then if all goes well, I will be training all out until 22nd of March when I will be leaving for racing in Palma. One thing is for sure and that’s that by the end of this experience I will be hungrier than ever to train harder than I ever have before and make up for the lost time. There is still lots of work to be done before my next peak which is the World Championships at the end of May, and once I am physically able, I will be mentally prepared to work at red line until then.

Until next time,

James

P.S. Click HERE for my updated gallery from the last few months