As we all know, il mostro had an eventful second leg. Our job for this stopover started two weeks ago, way before the boat reached land. After the black cat bruised a couple of ribs, we soon diagnosed her problems using the feedback from the crew.
Rapid decisions were taken and the guys on board went straight onto the job.
Scalpels, spacers, tweezers, chisels, stitches, anesthetics and some big syringes came out of the bag and they were ready to operate on the cat! The sailing team, whilst racing, did an amazing job of healing her wounds. Racing resumed quickly at 100 percent as they showed during their blast-reaching two days before PUMA reached the doldrums.
Now that the team have reached India, we engineers (or composite doctors) have been busy checking, questioning and investigating (number crunching on some occasions too - I have been told this what engineers do best but this is another debate...). This pre-op stage was well organized by (Doctor) Coxy.
The beauty of working with composite structures is that you can cut away an injured area of structure, and graft a replacement straight away without loosing strength or stiffness. The boat builders have been hard at work.
You might remember Steve Austin - The Six Million Dollar Man. This is what Coxy and his team have done on il mostro. In my opinion, this team are some of the best nurses you can get (if you are a boat or a feline obviously...) il mostro is back at 100 percent (maybe more but don't tell the crew!).
The black pussycat is ready to watch his prey and strike again! Go PUMA!
- Julien
