Light and powerful, Extreme 40 catamarans are naturally quick to take off… yet as the 2008 season proved, landing can sometimes be very tricky! Peter Greenhalgh, sailing aboard Oman Sail's Renaissance for 2009, was with Team Origin when they capsized in Hyères last year. He shares his experience.

"It's more likely to happen during the bear away, pushing too hard downwind or reaching. If you have a spinnaker up, then the windage of the kite is what blows you over and if it happens on a bear away, well it can be because of the sea state or because you haven't eased enough mainsheet, which results in the boat being overpowered.

You know when you're slightly on the edge, at at that moment if a little breeze comes through that's enough to make the boat pass the point of no return, that's why it's so tricky, there is no clear limit, no indicator that works every time. Once you've started to go over, there's not a lot you can do!

Then it's a matter of hanging on to the top hull, and when the mainsail hits the water you get quite a nasty jolt - unfortunately, you're left to hang on to the edge of the stickers with your fingernails because there's not much else! If the rig hits the bottom, provided you're in shallow waters, you get a second pretty bad jolt - basically, if you've survived the two blows, you end up safe on the upturned hull.

If it's deep and you're going to invert, there's no real point to hanging on to the hull be honest - you'd be better off clinging to the netting, which is a safe option.

The bottom line is that it's a pretty big cock up if you capsize, so you're really trying not to play with fire as a rule of thumb… but then again there will be situations where you'll get carried away, by the level of competition mostly. If it happens in shallow waters and you're careful enough to put the boat back up without snapping the rig, you've saved the day… but an Extreme 40 flat on her back is another story and can ruin a whole event."