Page 44 Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019by Neil
Tweedie
Derek Morland does not dwell on
this scene in ordinary life. But it is
always there, stowed in the back of
his mind, his abiding memory of
the 1979 Fastnet disaster, whose
40th anniversary fell this week.
Fifteen yachtsmen taking part in
the fabled ocean race — and four
more in a cruising yacht following
the field — lost their lives when a
depression barrelling in from the
Atlantic unexpectedly deepened
into a full-blown Force 10 storm,
with winds at times gusting to
Force 12, hurricane strength.
Around 300 yachts, crewed by
some 2,500 people, were assaulted
by raging seas never encountered
during such an event. Five vessels
sank and 19 were abandoned —
and more than 100 suffered cap-
sizes, knock-downs, broken masts
and rudders as the storm tore
through an armada strung out
between Land’s End and the
Fastnet Rock, Ireland’s most
southerly point. Of the 303
entrants, 194 retired and only
85 completed the terrible race.
‘We couldn’t reach them. We lost
sight of them,’ Mr Morland says of
his friends who died. ‘I was 24. It’s
part of me — always will be.’
He sees no need to garnish
tragedy with a public outpouring
of emotion. He knows what it
means — to him and the relatives
of the two lost men. And the loved
ones of the third member of the
eight-man crew of the Essex-based
racing yacht Trophy who died
that night.
‘I thought I was going to drown,
as simple as that. We capsized four
times in the raft, and on the fourth
it split.
‘I thought we were next after
three of us had died but you can be
frightened for only so long. In the
end, we were just waiting for it. If
we hadn’t been picked up, we
would have gone down with
hypothermia. With the waves
hitting you for so long it’s so tiring
— you just go to sleep.’
T
HE young aerospace
engineer and amateur
sailor had pretended to
be sick to get time off
work for the race. Now, here he
was, clinging to a shredded life raft,
an ordeal that would last ten hours,
or so he thinks. Time dissolves
when every minute is potentially
your last. His life did not flash
before his eyes; there was no great
sorrow that it was about to be
cruelly cut short. Just the animal
imperative to survive.
Three days earlier, on Saturday,
August 11, he and the crew of the
37ft Trophy had been in high
spirits, stowing supplies as they
contemplated the 600-mile race
starting that day.
The Fastnet is a test of seaman-
ship, taking competitors from the
start line at Cowes on the Isle of
Wight, the spiritual home of Brit-
ish yachting, westward through
the English Channel and out in the
volatile waters of the Western
Approaches — the open Atlantic.
Competitors must round the
Fastnet, an exposed outcrop
topped by its lonely lighthouse,
before retracing the route to the
finishing line in Plymouth. The
race starts at the end of Cowes
Week, highlight of the social and
yachting calendar.
Offshore racing is not everyone’s
idea of recreation. Lashed by spray
and rain, buffeted by waves, the
yachtsman must learn to grab sleep
in between watches while living in
a cramped space at an angle of
perhaps 45 degrees. On racing
boats, bathroom facilities are rudi-
mentary, privacy non-existent.
The pay-off is a life shorn of
modern cares, an escape from the
mundane, a rush of freedom in the
face of unbridled nature, and vault-
ing skyscapes unmatched on dry
land. A true sense of camaraderie,
too, in happy crews.
Trophy was owned and skippered
by a London publican called Alan
Bartlett. His crew consisted of
Derek Morland, Robin Bowyer, a
sailing instructor and expert
navigator, Peter Everson, Simon
Fleming, Richard Mann, John Pux-
ley and Russell Smith.
Like many boats of her size in
that era she had no VHF radio.
Navigation relied on Bowyer’s skill
— which was considerable — and
plotting using radio direction-
finding. GPS lay far into the future.
When she at last ventured into the
Western Approaches, Trophy
would be on her own.
As she headed along the English
South Coast on Sunday, August 12,
BBC radio weather reports
suggested an approaching Force 8
gale, with winds of about 45 knots.
This was within the crew’s
comfort zone. But far away, neme-
sis was brewing.
Born the previous week over
the Midwest of America, a
depression later labelled Low Y by
Britain’s Met Office — colourful
storm names being a thing of the
future — began its destructive
journey eastward.
Causing damage in New England,
it killed a woman in New York’s
Central Park (a fallen tree branch)
before heading out across the
Atlantic. Small and fast-moving, it
was hard to track — weather satel-
lites being fewer in number and
less capable then.
Monday dawned fair with smooth
seas, turning humid in the after-
noon. But Peter Whipp, seasoned
skipper of the yacht Magic, was
uneasy. ‘It was kind of eerie,’ he
remembered. ‘I remember charg-
ing up the batteries and lashing
everything down.’
As the day wore on the depres-
sion slowed and deepened, the sky
turning a sinister pink. The Radio 4
shipping forecast was now
suggesting Force 9. The flotilla was
out in the Approaches, exposed
with no port to run to. It was only
at 11pm that the forecast warned
of the full threat posed by Low Y,
with winds expected to rise to
storm Force 10, meaning 55 knots.
The wolf had thrown off its
sheep’s clothing.
Racing through the dark, yachthelmsmen found themselves
surfing down increasingly high
waves. Exhilarating at first,
but then, as Monday turned to
Tuesday, reality set in. The armada
was at maximum vulnerability,
with many boats unable to
communicate with the outside
world. Flare guns were the only
way for some to register distress.
‘It is quite amazing how soon you
find yourself alone once you get
out into the Approaches,’ says
Mr Morland. ‘You see the odd sail
on the horizon — you realise how
big the ocean is. The visible horizon
at deck height on a yacht might be
three miles.
‘At first, it was great. It was nice
to get out of sight of land. We were
surfing down waves with the stormjib up. We needed two guys on the
helm to hold it and stay on track.
We were thoroughly enjoying our-
selves, but a couple of the guys
were getting seasick. Robin always
got seasick. I often wondered how
he managed to navigate so well
with a bucket next to him.’
As the night wore on, exhilaration
turned to terror. Crews found them-
selves pitched into individual bat-
tles with the elements as huge
waves up to 60ft high enveloped
their boats — not from one direc-
tion but all directions. The sea
turned from black to white as its
violence increased, great white caps
towering over the boats below.
Dramas were being played out in
the dark as men and women died,
individual tragedies endured byterrified crews of isolated and
crippled boats. Crewmen not
harnessed to the deck were swept
away, while those who were
attached found themselves trapped
underwater until their capsized
yachts righted.
The 30ft yacht Grimalkin was in
the eye of the storm. Battered by
soaring waves, she repeatedly
capsized, and at one point pitch-
poled — somersaulting stern over
bow as a giant wave sent her
careering into a trough. Her skip-
per, already injured by flying
objects below (even secure storage
spaces were lacking on many
vessels) was swept to his death.
Three men, including the
skipper’s son, took to the boat’s
life raft believing their twoE
IGHT men huddle inside a covered life raft,
cartwheeling in a mountainous night-time sea.
Outside, the shrieking wind of a Force 10 storm
whips the ocean into ever-greater fury — vast
towering blocks of water forming and crashing
down in relentless sequence.
The flimsy craft flips over again and again as wave after wave falls
upon it, until at last it can take no more. Suddenly, it splits, spilling
its exhausted and battered human cargo into the raging water.
Six men manage to grab hold of its still-inflated remnants but two
lose their grip. They hover nearby for an eternity as their crew-
mates, summoning their last reserves of strength, try to reach
them. One appears to swim towards his beckoning friends but the
other floats lifelessly in the water, mercifully beyond caring.
In a moment, both men slip from view into the darkness,
consumed by the foaming tumult, never to be seen alive again.Their mounting terror
as the monster storm
loomed ++ A desperate
scramble for the life
rafts in 60ft waves
++ The horror of
19 yachtsmen swept
to their deaths ++ Forty
years on from Britain’s
Fastnet Race disaster,
survivors relive every
shattering moment...