A tumultuous Transat...TP52 crew lost at sea...Bruce Kendall

by . on 1 Nov 2015 Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand e-magazine for November 2, 2015

It has been a tough week in the Transat Jacque Vabre – the two handed trans-Atlantic race from Le Havre, France to Itajai, Brazil.

If you want to think in Volvo Ocean Race terms, the course is close to the opening leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. Well, until they make the turn off the coast of Brazil and head for Cape Town.

The race is sailed in four classes – ranging from Class 40 monohulls to Ultime 80 multihulls, with a 50ft multihull and 60ft monohull in between.

The attrition rate has been high – almost too much to track – 16 out of a total of 42 starters as of Sunday.

That’s a drop-out rate of 38% - well up on the 25% that is the average for this event.

For sure any race that starts from France at this time of the year can expect a rough first few days as low-pressure zones roll through the fleet and this year was no different.

But with 80ft trimarans capsizing, and of five of the new foiler 60ft IMOCA monohulls that started now only one is left - Banque Populaire VIII is still on the course and leading her Mono60 class.

Safran, Edmond de Rothschild, St-Michel Virbac have all retired with varying damage. Hugo Boss also retied after suspending racing to effect minor repairs ahead of approaching 40kt winds and increased sea state. Her crew then elected to return to Spain, but she was capsized by a rogue wave and inverted with all hatches open.

We have the details of what happened next in this issue along with a video of the rescue.

Three times winner Jean-Pierre Dick pointed out that the new IMOCA 60’s are nearly new prototypes that need time to evolve into solid racing machines.

“Boats designed today are too fragile,“ Dick said in an interview with race media. “But we work now with the designers on Version 2. Along with my partners, we are frustrated not to finish. But these are racing prototypes. We knew that we had a lot to learn with this generation of foiler boats. So we are already working towards the future.”

The goal for the IMOCA 60fters is next year’s Vendee Globe singlehanded, unassisted non-stop around the world race. The Transat Jacques Vabre was intended to be a shakedown for that event, but instead it has proved to be a shakeup – and there will be a lot of computer time and structural analysis before these boats start serious sea-trialing.

The conditions experienced this week in the Transat Jacques Vabre are positively mild compared to what the could expect in a circumnavigation.

On the positive side, no lives have been lost, safety procedures seemed to have worked well, and while there have been a few anxious moments, everyone has survived to fight another day.

Not so lucky was Sai Jun, a crew member aboard Ark323 of Noah’s Sailing Club, who was swept overboard from the boat when sailing near the Vietnamese coast at just before midnight Thursday, October 25. They were en route to Bali and then to Sydney, for the 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race
A search has failed to find his body.

While Sai Jun was wearing a lifejacket, it is believed that it was a manually inflating type. The automatic inflating jackets being a liability on the very wet TP52’s – when they could explode into life during a dive through a wave.

Manually inflating jackets are not much use for someone who is stunned when they go into the water, and that is the safety dilemma.

Whether he was harnessed onto the boat is not known. The fact that Sai Jun went into the water would suggest not.

Again, we have the story and details in this issue.

Closer to home, Maritime New Zealand has launched Safe Boating Week - extended for a two month period to drive home the message and make a bigger impact on water safety in New Zealand than just the short impact program of last year.

Up until early September, 68 people had drowned in New Zealand. For the whole of 2014 a total of 90 lost their lives through drowning.

Of those 90 people, 27 lost their lives through recreational boating of one type or another. Two-thirds of those would have survived had they been wearing lifejackets. Up until the start of Safer Boating Week, 16 people had drowned in recreational boating accidents in 2015. Most of those people were male aged between 30 and 60 years old.

As can be seen from the items above there is no silver bullet when it comes to water safety. Yes, you should be wearing a lifejacket of some type – but which one?

This is where you have to take some time out and think about what you do on the water, what the risks are and how you would cope.

Me? I’ve got two lifejackets. Both live in my car. One is a dinghy style PFD that I wear most of the time. I did pick it carefully – made sure it was tight fitting and bought a top of the line model and one that would give the maximum of body flexibility (meaning it is high cut). You don’t really know you have it on and can pull a warm jacket on over the top if need be.

The other is a full blown harness and inflatable jacket. After a couple of near misses when working in a photo boat, plus trying to recover from a shoulder injury that was getting worse with every fall I decided to buy a topline model that again was fitted for me, allowed maximum flexibility and movement and I could harness myself into the boat.

My thinking was that I spent close to $1,000 per month in life insurance premiums – so what was spending $500 to buy a proper setup to save me if I did fall overboard with full wet weather gear?

The life jacket is just another form of life insurance.

Three weeks after buying the harness I went overboard – full wet weather gear and wearing two cameras.

Falling overboard happens so quickly that it is quite a surreal experience, and even when you are in the water, you wonder quite how and why you got there.

Fortunately, the jacket inflated, and I climbed back on board, with two dead cameras.

Without the inflatable jacket, it could have been a very different story – and not something that you set out to emulate on the sea. A swimming pool test might be a little different. But I know my gear works now – and its fine.

Do you know what would happen if you fell overboard? It can happen at any time - by your own hand, or by someone else’s.

Even with the best of gear, there's no certainty when you go over the side that you'll be OK. But certainly you are going to have a much better chance with it, than without it.

Follow all the racing and developments in major and local events on www.sail-world.com, scroll to the bottom of the site, select New Zealand, and get all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor

sailworldnzl@gmail.com

Please forward news stories and images these directly to Sail-World NZ using our new very easy to use submission system, or forward to the email address: sailworldnzl@gmail.com as text in the email and attach images in the standard way for emails.

To subscribe to Sail-World.com's NZ e-magazine published two or three times weekly goto www.sail-world.com and click on Newsletter and Subscribe. You can see previous newsletters by clicking on Newsletter and then Archive from the drop-down menu.

If you are a potential advertiser and want to understand how Sail-World can work for your company, website or product, then drop a line to Colin Preston at nzsales@sail-world.com

If you want to contact Richard Gladwell directly email: sailworldnzl@gmail.com or call (+6421) 301030

Don't forget to check our website www.sail-world.com, scroll to the bottom of the site, select New Zealand, and get all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.