I’d lost my footing a couple of times already. It took me 20 minutes to get to the first spreader. Pindar had three sets, spaced approximately 20, 40 and 60ft up the mast. Scaling the mast when Pindar was in dock took a few minutes, and not long at all to reach the first spreaders. If the boat’s motion became too unstable, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. I was still uncomfortable with the thought of a big gust coming through while I was high up there. The tiniest bit of slack in the rope multiplied the potential for a hard climb, so I wound it down to the deck as hard as I could. If your platform is Pindar in choppy seas and gusting winds, it becomes a different proposition altogether. It sounds so simple, and on a steady platform with a taut rope, it is. Then I was able to release the pressure on the lower jammer by raising my feet, and move that up a few inches and so on. When I put my feet in them and stood up I was able to release the pressure on the seat jammer, move it up a few inches and sit back down. The foot straps were also attached to the rope with a one-way jammer. When I let go – and therefore exerted downward pressure by sitting in the seat – I could lift my feet from the ground and the seat was supported. The jammer gripped the rope when you exerted downward pressure on it. When I was ready, I climbed into the Topclimber, which was attached to the rope at waist height with a strap and a one-way jammer. This consisted of a little platform seat and two stirrup-like straps, with loops for my feet. The ascent would be via a length of rope stretched between the top of the mast and the deck, using a Topclimber. I put my video camera in my pocket, strapped on my helmet and psyched myself up. I took a knife to cut away the old dead end, the spare main halyard (240ft), some tape and a block in case the one at the top had been the cause of the halyard breaking. The wind was varying between 15 and 25 knots and I needed to make sure I had a sail setting to cover the range of winds while I was up there. I’d planned to go up at dawn, but I ended up waiting to allow some black clouds to blow through. They might as well have been a million miles away, I felt suddenly so isolated. Namibia lay 2,000 miles due east, Brazil 2,000 miles to the west. We were a fraction south of the Tropic of Capricorn and slap bang in the middle of the South Atlantic when the main halyard broke. Now, over to Emma… Extract from Around Alone Read it and, as I did, ask yourself how you might have measured up.įor a vivid glimpse into this race, have a look on YouTube for videos from the 2002 Around Alone. This extract from Emma’s Around Alone is by far the best description I have come across of the horrors of climbing a mast on a solo race boat. The skill and sheer guts lie outside the experience of the rest of us, relatively normal sailors. Sailing the Open 60 Pindar, she was pipped at the post for a podium finish, but reading her book 20 years later, I realised again that the placing is less important than the character of the men and women who take up the challenges of the great single-handed events. There also aren’t too many spiders in the deck to enable Elise effectively.In 2002, Emma Richards (now Sanderson) was the youngest person and the first British woman to finish the ‘Around Alone’ race. The long and short of it is that Katarina enables Gwen more than Elise, all the while being a win condition herself. In this deck, Elise is used more as a distraction to take your opponent’s eyes off the true carries: Katarina and Gwen. That, coupled with your stacking Hallowed buff, makes her a force to be reckoned with, and one that will need to get blocked. This can go either way, but the better option would be two Katarinas, due to the Rally she provides. From here, should you include two Katarinas or two Elises? It’s important to have three Gwens, as she is the strongest of the bunch. With three champions in this deck, it’s important to discuss how many of which champions you want. However, there are a couple of powerful variants that will be specifically addressed in this article, them being Gwen-Elise and Gwen-Katarina, so let’s get right into it. Some cards are swapped in and out to adapt to the deck’s strengths and weaknesses. There are some variants of this deck, as is the case with any deck in Legends of Runeterra. RELATED: Legends Of Runeterra: All Shadow Isles Champions, Ranked While running three champions in a deck is usually a risk, this particular deck makes it one of its greatest strengths. Comprised of cards from the Shadow Isles and Noxus, this flexible deck can change its win condition at a moment's notice, and excels at reacting to its enemy’s strategy. The Elise, Gwen, and Katarina deck has become a potent force in Legends of Runeterra.
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