Donkey of the month:
The Editor

What: 5 stitches in upper lip and one dislocated finger

Where: first day of competition at the Bigbury Triple Crown event this September.

In between editing the Boardseeker Magazine, Louise competes on the UK Freewave circuit and takes it quite seriously! She was sailing well during practice and looking forward to her first round heat against Tanya Saleh at the second Triple Crown event of the season. 20 minutes before her heat she went out to check she was on the right sail size for the gusty conditions.

Over to Louise…

“I can’t even remember what I was doing but I fell off. The sail remained upright in the air for a few seconds as I fell in backwards. I could see this from under the water, so I put my arm across my face and head just in case the mast decided to fall my way.

Boy, it sure did! The mast fell exactly between my fourth and little finger, sweeping my arm aside and dislocating my little finger in the process. The mast then landed firmly on my upper lip, splitting it open. My first thought was that my face had just exploded and I was sure I had broken my nose.

My second thought was, my heat is in 20 minutes, get in, clean it up and go out again. But as I walked up the beach, kindly aided by the hunky RNLI Beach Lifeguards, my fellow competitors looked at me in total horror as my lip hung off the side of my mouth with copious amounts of blood dripping down my face.

The heat was Tanya’s as I was taken to Plymouth A&E for a 3 hour wait in my wetsuit followed by the most painful local anaesthetic injected right into my swollen lip.

No event, no result and a little lifetime facial memory of my first event at Bigbury!”

Yes, the rest of the Boardseeker Team agree: what a donkey!!