Went sailing at Datchet this morning - having a blast, twin-wiring, plenty of wind. Gently heading downwind (no kite) to the start area before the first race and we managed a full-on butt-over-tit pitchpole. The boat was stood on its bows and then rolled forwards so it was turtled.

It took me a couple of minutes to sort out the righting line and start trying to right it, by which time there was absolutely no way it was coming back up on its own. We eventually managed to get it on its side with the help of the rescue boat, and then finally managed to right it with two people on the righting line and two people lifting the mast from the RIB.

It's seems pretty obvious that the mast had leaked. I didn't have time to investigate today so I'm trying to figure out what happened and what I need to do to fix it. This is the first time we've had the boat turtle and I'm guessing that the pressure of having the mast tip 8.5m under popped the seal in the top of the mast.

When we got the boat out, there was some water running out of the base for quite a while. I'm not sure if this means that the seal in the mast above the internal d/h has a leak too.

We managed to capsize again later, but without turtling, and once again, there was no way we could get it back up, so I assume that the mast was still full of water, or filled up quickly from the tip. (In that sort of wind I can normally right the boat on my own with ease)

I've never paid much attention to what's at the top of the mast, other than the fact that it looks like there's a bit of foam in there. How do I go about finding and fixing a leak? And, out of curiosity, how on earth do you put a seal in above the internal downhaul?

Paul