man overboard. A fatal collision. A near
grounding. The Melbourne to Hong Kong
leg of the Volvo Ocean Race saw every
offshore sailor’s worst nightmares made
real. But why did so many incidents occur,
and can any lessons be learned from them?
The Volvo Ocean Race has its detractors: the route,
choice of yachts, crew rules, every facet of the race has
been subject to criticism. Yet one thing that is not in
question is the standard of the sailors, or the level of the
competition. Volvo crews are among the most talented
and capable in the sport. To win catapults a skipper into
the sphere of the greats – Van Rietschoten, Blake, Dalton,
Cayard, Cammas. It is an event where legends are made.
But even the ‘gods’ of this race are fallible. In 2014 Team
Vestas Wind famously smashed into the Cardagos Carajos
Shoals after a simple, yet devastating, navigation error.
Huge efforts are continually made to improve the
safety of the crews taking part – the one-design VO65s
made more robust, step changes made in the personal
safety kit and communications carried in every edition.
For this year’s race additional training requirements were
introduced that saw Volvo crews, many of whom had well
in excess of 100,000 miles at sea, going back to school to
complete their RYA Yachtmaster tickets.
Three incidents took place on the 5,500 miles from
Melbourne to Hong Kong. First Alex Gough on Scallywag
Sun Hung Kai was swept overboard, but recovered.
The most serious incident was when Vestas 11th Hour
Racing collided with a fishing
boat, resulting in the death of a
crew member of that vessel.
Third, it transpired some
days after the finish of the leg
that race control had emailed
the Scallywag team to check
that they were aware of an
approaching reef. Scallywag
altered course and avoided a
collision.
Man overboard
Are such incidents inevitable or avoidable? We spoke to
current and former Volvo crews and ocean racers and each
one said that there is a large element of luck that governs
whether you get to race around the world unscathed.
Few people were luckier in this race than Alex Gough,
who was swept from the outrigger of Scallywag as he set
up for a headsail peel. Scallywag was leading Leg 4 at the
time, and racing in around 18 knots of wind under
fractional spinnaker in the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles
north-east of the Bismarck Archipelago.
In what he admitted was a ‘pretty stupid’ error, Gough
went onto the leeward outrigger to prepare the new
sheets, without alerting the helmsman and without
clipping on. Neither was he wearing a lifejacket or
personal locator beacon.
He explained in Hong Kong: “I wouldn’t say it’s a risky
manoeuvre – I’d put a sheet through the end of an
outrigger probably 100 times during a leg; I just picked
the wrong time to do it. My feet were still on the rails of
the boat, but I was swept off by a wave. Just a half second
glance and I was in the water – you don’t have a lot of time
to think.”
The Scallywag team rolled straight into their man
overboard procedure and retrieved
Gough within seven minutes.
Man overboard is often considered
the worst case scenario in the Volvo
Ocean Race and teams prepare for it assiduously. Before
the start of the race Dongfeng released a video of them
practising their MOB procedures. Many viewers
questioned why they weren’t implementing basic RYA
techniques, such as pointing at the casualty.
Dongfeng crew Jack Bouttell explained that the
principles taught during most courses don’t apply to the
Volvo 65s. “You can’t relate these boats to an RYA
Yachtmaster scheme, it physically doesn’t work. You
would break the boat and be further away from getting
back to the guy in the water.”
There are several reasons for not dedicating one crew to
point at the casualty. When sailing at 20-knot speeds any
MOB is likely to be out of sight within a matter of seconds,
especially in ‘fire hose’ conditions. There may only be
three or four people on deck, so all hands would be
required to slow the boat down. If conditions allow, there
is potential for the onboard reporter to instead launch a
drone to help find or monitor the casualty.
While recovery drills may be advanced, avoiding an
MOB in the first place is still the first point of safety. Ian
Walker, winning skipper in the last race, says that while
clipping on is second nature in cold weather, in tropical
conditions it’s easy to become relaxed about it.
“I’ve said for a long time that we’re pretty lackadaisical
when we’re sailing in strong winds in warm temperatures.Above: there
have been huge
improvements
made to safety kit,
including bespoke
lifejacket/
harnesses and
MOB alert devices‘a large element of luck
is involved in racing
Around the world’
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volvo oceAn rAce