how much 'thinking' you can do in just seconds!

I was tending mainsheet on a J-24 during a spinnaker run in gusting 25-30 knots winds out of the Ala Wai marina in Honolulu for a beer can race. As we got knocked down on our beam ends, I went tumbling down across the cockpit and into the water. The skipper yelled something about 'don't fall into the mainsail!' (Interesting priority....) The boat stayed on its side while I observed several things.... like, "Hey, pretty cool how the companionway is still 10" above the water and there's no water going down below", on to, "Hmm, she's not coming back up very quick, I wonder if the keel is out of the water like the rudder is...." to "Let me see if my weight on the rudder will help get her back up...." to "Wait a minute! We've still got the spinnaker up, if this boat comes back up and I'm on the rudder, it'll leave me behind... " to "Crap, it's coming back up, forget the rudder, I'm grabbing the stern lifelines.." to, Alleyoop, I'm up 'give me a hand the rest of the way!'. Of course, in the chaos to get sorted, we got knocked over again and I landed on the submerged lee lifelines which lifted me back on board (in an ungainly way) when we righted the 2nd time.

We didn't really do too well in that race.....