Volvo Ocean Race Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai. Around Cape Horn. - photo © Ainhoa Sanchez / Volvo Ocean Race
Dear [recipient name]
Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand e-magazine for March 30, 2018
There has been an awful lot happening over the past few days.
First, the tragedy in the Southern Ocean on Tuesday (NZT) when John Fisher, a Brit resident in Adelaide, was knocked over the side of SHK Scallywag, never to be seen again.
Second, Auckland is all but confirmed as the Venue for the 36th America's Cup after an 11th-hour effort by Emirates Team New Zealand to come up with a new plan that would be acceptable to the politicians and funders.
Third, Emirates Team New Zealand published the Class Rule for the AC75 class to be used in the 36th America's Cup.
The latter proved to be a damp squib, with little in the new rule that had not already been signalled or guessed. Confirmed were the crew numbers set at 11 human beings. Maybe the rule makers were wary of someone developing Rodney Robot, or Michael Muscle to be able to turn in a superhuman performance on the grinders. The rule is clearly not written by someone used to drafting class rules. It is long on specifics, particularly on structures - which may reduce the number of calls to the Measurement Committee - but for the layperson, it is a difficult read.
Interestingly the overall length of the hull translates to 67.6 feet - well short of the class moniker of AC75 (feet), maybe the bowsprit is included to get to the mid-70's total length.
The crew will number 11 - an average of 90kg which is not that big considering that some big grinding units will be required. There is no quota for female sailors. However, with the low average weight, the gender door may have opened as clearly one or two lighter female crew members are going to have a favourable trade-off with the higher average weight of the remainder of the crew.
Not too much is revealed about the arms, as the topside foils are known - except they will be battery powered - using supplied one design power packs.
The above commentary is based on a late-night skim read of the new Rule - all 62 pages of it, released at midnight last night. More will no doubt be revealed next week.
The Extraordinary Meeting of the Governing Body of the Auckland Council completed the laying on of hands for Auckland to host the 36th America's Cup. We have a couple of stories relating to the meeting itself, yesterday and the lead-in on Monday evening when the Coalition Government and Emirates Team New Zealand released the plan accompanied by separate media releases.
Tellingly the plan - even the version circulated by Auckland Council featured the Emirates Team New Zealand logo.
Success may have many fathers, but clearly, ETNZ was the mother of this plan.
One source very close to the action commented to Sail-World: "I can assure you that it was ETNZ to the rescue after they bothered to do the numbers properly on the Wynyard Plan".
That rescue plan hatched in nearby Beaumont Street involved finding another $35million, which was achieved by grabbing the media and regatta administration facilities - to have been run out of the Viaduct Events centre - and using that for a base for Emirates Team New Zealand.
Quite where the media and all important television crew will be housed remains to be seen. A popup building on the end of Halsey Wharf looks to be the logical spot.
As a plan, it will be difficult to deliver ahead of the August/September 2019 deadline - necessary for the serious team to be able to sail in the summer of 2019/20. Several months have been lost with the aborted Resource Consent process - which has cost $2million - and will be refunded by the Government.
The mood within the Council Meeting yesterday was very good, in contrast to the heated outbursts that have marked the previous three meetings of the Governing Body when it has discussed America's Cup. Sure some of the firebrands were absent. The public was excluded for the first hour of the meeting - ostensibly to hide discussion on commercially sensitive financial matters.
But most of the numbers were in the cost matrix in the thin supplied report. More likely is that the cash-strapped Council was told of the Government's role in funding assistance and the fact that they needed to sign-off on this deal and pronto - or lose the Cup hosting to Italy.
Remarkably the final vote was unanimous.
Despite the acrimonies early in the process, yesterday was like the calm after the storm. At this point, there is no reason to expect that level of co-operation will continue Everyone is now working toward the same goal with an agreed plan and funding, and the task now is to make the 36th America's Cup as good as it possibly can be. Next battle has to be the protection of what little remains of the marine industry in that Wynyard Point area.
The Volvo Ocean Race fleet has rounded Cape Horn and is in the South Atlantic. Five boats are currently racing, with MAPFRE pulling into a bay at the tip of South America to effect mast track repairs.
The fleet has had one of the roughest rides through the Southern Ocean in the history of the round the world races. The videos and images contained in a couple of stories in this newsletter are a testament to that, and the drone footage is spectacular and awesome in the literal sense of that over-used word.
On Tuesday morning NZT the terrible news came through of the loss overboard of John Fisher from SHK Scallywag.
Yesterday, a news update from the Shore Team of the boat revealed that he had been temporarily unclipped when the boat surfed and did a crash gybe on the wave. John Fisher was knocked overboard, and was probably unconscious when he hit the water.
One can only imagine the scenes on board when they realised that he had gone overboard, and had to turn and motor against the Southen Ocean maelstrom to search for their lost crewmate.
It is inevitable that there will be another inquiry and hopefully, this will be led once again by Rear Admiral Chris Oxenbould, with Stan Honey and Chuck Hawley assisting. Already they have one investigation running into the Hong Kong fatality involving Vestas 11th Hour Racing. They did an outstanding job with the Vestas Wind inquiry in the 2014/15 race - and it is only through learning from these incidents can safety be progressed.
One issue that will come up will be the subject of double tethering - in other words, that crew hook onto two points when moving - so that at least one tether is always in use.
Another will be that of automatically inflating life jackets and activation of other immersed safety gear. The issue is that many crews removed the auto-inflate mechanism from lifejackets to avoid these inflating when doused as a boat goes through the wave. This has the obvious downside that if you go over the side unconscious then auto inflation mechanism will not be triggered, and you sink rapidly.
Recovery of a crewmember is never easy - as we saw on SHK Scallywag when crew member Alex Gough went overboard on Leg 4 in broad daylight, a modest breeze and choppy seas. The only reason he was spotted was that he raised an arm. He was glimpsed by a lookout, and she guided the helmsman to him.
A bollicking from David Witt was probably Alex Gough's worst memory of the experience.
I only met John Fisher once, during the stopover in Auckland when he gave several media and guests a walk through SHK Scallywag. He is one of those people who you meet for five minutes and feel like you have a friend for life - he just had that way about him - and a great crew member and person to have on your side. He made an instant impression on everyone he met.
The many tributes from others who sailed with John speak of the same attributes.
Our condolences to John's family and friends at this terrible time.
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Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
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