Volvo OR: Libby Greenhalgh on textbook MOB response
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 14 Jan 2018 13:40 PST
15 January 2018
Leg 4, Melbourne to Hong Kong, day 14 The boat is powered up and the crew are keen to post a good result in this race to their home port on board Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag © Konrad Frost / Volvo Ocean Race
Libby Greenhalgh, navigator aboard SHK Scallywag, explains the Scallywag crew's reaction after crewman Alex Gough was flicked overboard by a wave yesterday on Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race.
To recap, Scallywag was leading the fourth leg, having staged a brilliant recovery after taking a gutsy navigation decision to break with the rest of the fleet, after they looked set for a last-place finish. The move paid off lifting SHK Scallywag into first place on the distance to finish basis and also by comparison with the rest of the fleet using weather routing to predict finish times and course.
Having hit the Tradewinds, Scallywag was sailing fast (20-25kts) and was pulling time on the rest of the fleet.
Gough had a brain explosion and decided on the spur of the moment to go out on an outrigger to free a sheet, without telling the helmsman and not tethering to the boat. Along with the rest of the crew, he wasn't wearing a harness or lifejackets or carrying personal MOB alarms.
He was caught by a wave as the boat started to surf. David Witt who was at the helm at the time wasn't aware what Gough was doing and didn't steer to make sure he was well clear of the water. To compound the issue Gough (along with the rest of the crew were wearing standard black sailing kit, making him near invisible against the deep blue of the Pacific. He was saved only by virtue of raising his arm in the air which was sighted by one of the crew.
On board the Volvo Ocean racers (and indeed all offshore yachts), there is a standard electronic man overboard procedure.
Navigator Libby Greenhalgh (GBR) is a very experienced navigator and meteorologist, who'd stepped aboard SHK Scallywag just three days before the start of the Leg from Melbourne to Hong Kong. She runs through what happened below decks during the incident. She was asleep at the time Gough went overboard:
"Seven minutes from the call, to Alex being back onboard.
"Seven minutes that felt like half an hour.
"Seven minutes where 50% of the time we couldn't physically see him in the water dressed in black.
"It was one minute before what had happened had woken me, and I was pushing the MOB button on my computer. It was 30 seconds before anything was physically thrown off the boat, by which point it was the best part of 300M away from Alex. When we picked him up he was roughly 100M away from where he had fallen in.
"The efficiency with which this was all achieved is testimony to the core crew and those of us that have gelled around it, who remained so calm under pressure that once Alex was back onboard and confirmed ok the crew simply slipped into the peel to MH0 that we had previously been discussing and carried on charging towards Hong Kong.
"It is now back to reef dodging in all the ocean in the all the world we are currently going through what feels like a little minefield of reefs called Micronesia.
Fortunately for all the only damage was a dunking for Gough, some very terse words from skipper David Witt, and while SHK Scallywag lost time during the incident, they extended their lead on the water.
According to Volvo Ocean Race, projections are almost 50nm ahead of the second placed boat, Vestas 11th Hour racing with the next two around 10 miles behind Vestas 11th Hour.
However, this story, and a poor split second decision could have had a completely different ending for both Gough and the team losing a Leg win in their home port - a situation that Witt had previously described as a catastrophic outcome for the team.