Hi all, last wednesday I went out to test my new GPS (which is just a fancy name for my brother's old phone) and I was having a blast on my old Nacra 5.2. Hit over 30 Km/h as I blew past lots of monohulls, waving politely of course, exactly the kind of speed I had in mind.

After a while I sailed on looking for bigger winds and more speed when the bigger winds found me and put the boat on its side in a second. This happened even though I had released the main (which I had been hand holding) but before I got the jib down.

Luckily my exit was graceful and I never even got my feet wet. Not like the last time I tipped and ended up hanging upside down from my ankle (turtling the boat)...

Anyway, so far so good, I thought and started to loosen the jib sheet and pay out the tangled up mainsheet. I got my rigting line, tossed it over and walked out to the tip of the bow. It was then that I noticed that I could not get the boat angled into the wind, the best I could do was get the hulls pointing straight into the wind. This meant that I could almost get the boat righted three times. Almost that is, with the mast way up in the air I was already already looking for a spot to grab the dolphin striker bar when the wind and waves blew the mast downwind and she sank back in, trowing me off balance and really p1ssing me off in the process. Luckily for me I was in a safe area drifting toward a nice gravel bank where I knew I could beach without any damage that would worry me.

I shoved the dagger boards in and decided to pull up the rudders to protect them while beaching. That's when I found out that a Nacra 5.2 can do a backward summersault while on its side. It was actually a pretty cool move, even if it came as some surprise! Again I managed to stay dry, just don't ask me how, it all went so fast. That put the mast to windward but by now I had drifted to the shore and the number of people around made righting the boat there too dangerous.
Normally I can right this boat solo at the first attempt as I weigh in at 200# or slightly over.

Does anyone have any idea what could have prevented the boat from turning further into the wind like I wanted? (jib and main were both 100% loose and not snagged or anything) I had considered swimming the mast into the wind but the waves made me reconsider. Should I re-fit the righting pole I used to have or make me a righting bag after all? I have capsized and turtled a number of times, but never had any trouble righting this boat. What gives? Any ideas?
Thanks,
Dennis