Poor Tom Frame, not only did he break his leg on the first night of the Rolex Fastnet Race see previous news story here he also lost one of his trusted Dubarry boots.

According to Frame who ‘escaped’ from hospital and was hobbling around on crutches in Plymouth yesterday, the worst bit about the whole scenario was having to have his boot cut off.

Commenting from the beer tent at the Royal Western Yacht Club Frame told yachtingworld.com: “Funnily enough as they were cutting the boot off I was sitting there thinking ‘do they really have to do that?’ An interesting thought under the circumstances. But of course I realised they had to, there was simply no other choice. Unfortunately they didn’t have the best pair of scissors so it was difficult for them to cut through the leather. Once they’d done that they hacked through my Henri Lloyd salopettes!”

Joking aside, Frame explained in detail what happened: “I was on the foredeck and a big wave pushed me down the deck. I got my leg trapped under the spinnaker pole, as the wave pushed me down the deck my leg was still trapped under the pole. It broke in two places. Strangely enough it wasn’t that painful at first just a weird sensation of the bones moving and touching each other. It broke in two places, both on the lower leg; two inches from the ankle on the tibia and two inches from the knee down on the fibula.”

Frame said he’s now heading to Southampton to get the leg cast properly but the worst thing is he’s going to be in plaster for four months with 12 months recovery. Looking on the bright side of a gloomy situation however, Frame said it could have been a lot worse they may have had to put pins in had it not been a clean break!