Sailor Explains: What Caused the Fastnet '79 Disaster

on the 11th of August 1979 303 yacht set sail on the fastnet round the rock race in the storm that followed 24 Boats were abandoned five sank 136 crew were rescued and 15 Sailors died leading to one of the biggest overhauls of offshore racing culture in the history of the race [Music] Wilkin is a 30-foot half-ton sailing yacht designed by Ron Holland and built by boat Builders camper and Nicholson in the run-up to the fastnet race of 1979 a six-man crew sailed several offshore races together in preparation for the Fast Net round the rock race they're all experienced Sailors and they know the boat well on Saturday the 11th of August 303 Yachts set off into predictable and Mild conditions on board the grimalkin are Skipper David Sheehan David's son Matthew who's 17 years old Nick Ward Mark Doyle Dave wheeler and Jerry Winks the fastnet round-the-rock sailing race is one of the oldest and most prestigious events in offshore racing the journey starts at cows in the Isle of Wight Yachts make their way around the southwest of England and up into the Celtic Sea they round the fastnet rock Southwest of Ireland's Cape clear Island then returned to Plymouth the 6th 600 nautical mile race takes around six days to complete it's a grueling Endeavor that tests the will and experience of any sailor in 1979 the race is governed by a set of rules called the ior the international offshore rule the ior is a set of points to measure a yacht after taking these measurements a yacht is given a handicap the handicap allows a vessel to be assigned a class which means Yachts of a similar class can compete against each other it also gives away for Yachts of different classes to compete on a somewhat equal footing by applying the handicap over some years designers pushed their designs to extract the fastest possible Yachts that the ior rules would allow the ior was measured at points which allowed designers to prioritize those points for measurements to reduce the yacht's handicap and to be more liberal in their designs outside of those points to optimize for Speed there's a lot more to it but essentially two large aspects of speed for a yacht are the length of the water line and the resistance below the water line a yacht sails faster the longer the water line and the less resistance there is below the water line a slow boat produces a short wave as the boat speeds up the length and height of the wave increases once the length of the wave reaches halfway down the length of the water line the boat has to climb its own wave the faster it goes the larger its wave becomes and so it has to climb a larger wave which requires a higher speed producing a larger wave that means the water line effectively acts as a speed limiter and once a certain speed is achieved relative to the length of the water line it can't go any faster under these rules the length of grimalkin measured Stone to bow at 30 foot she would have a lower handicap than a boat that measures 45 it however the designers are able to widen the width of her Beam at a point that's not measured and effectively increase the length of the water line not any depth but they can decrease the size of her Keel underwater so that she has less drag underwater Yachts that follow these design principles are often wider and shallower within reason of course in the right hands and the right conditions grimelken is a real Contender she has an experienced crew and Skipper the weather is good for sailing and the race gets underway by the 13th of August The Fleets are in the Celtic Sea some of the larger faster vessels have already rounded The Rock and are on their return leg the sea is starting to build as the weather picks up the wind is getting stronger and the skipper David Sheehan decides to put a reef in a reef is a set of loops on the Mainsail when the wind picks up a sailing yacht becomes overpowered if there's too much sail exposed to the wind so you drop the sail a little and tie the lower section of the sail to the boom through the reef Loops over the coming hours David would tie in all sets of reefs before bringing the sail down entirely the day before David had tuned in to listen to the shopping forecast as he did the same time every day the shipping forecast is a daily weather forecast sent out over the airwaves at a specific time all vessels can tune in and listen to the forecast and get the most up-to-date weather information in 1979 this is the only way to get weather information station and so the fastnet fleet would all tune in and get the same information then tune out and continue their daily sailing routine the broadcast communicates high winds of 45 knots that any seasoned sailor would consider strong but bearable later in the day on the 12th of August the weather bureau released a gale for storm warning but because this was outside the regular broadcast time the fastnet fleet and David Sheehan didn't pick it up more than that the storm front has followed immediately by an extreme low pressure and the direction of the wind shifts from Southwest to Northwest David and his crew are accustomed to some uncomfortable weather and so they sent about stowing away loose items they make some food to sustain themselves and settle in for some bad weather all the men come out on deck and attach themselves to the boat using a tether that's clipped both to their harness and to the boat the high wind has already created waves of significant Heights when the wind shifts Direction increases in speed this sends two sets of waves on a collision course with each other the result is short sharp high waves colliding with each other from different directions resulting in even higher waves hour after hour the sea State increases until the boat does one of the most terrifying things a sailor can experience as the gremel can descends down a wave her bow the front end of the boat digs into the trough of the wave in front of her and her Stern the back end rolls right over the bow this is called a pitch pole and it's the first of many for the grimalkin when the wind was coming from One Direction the gramulkin was able to cope but when the wind shifted direction another Force entered the equation when a wave moves in the same direction as the water current the result is two forces moving in the same direction the wave created by the wind rolls over the water a sailing vessel would experience this like a rising swell but not a breaking wave the swell becomes higher but doesn't necessarily break like a wave breaks when it hits the beach when the wind change direction some of the Fast Net fleets were hit by wind moving in the opposite direction of the water currents the effect of wind moving in the opposite direction of the water current is that the currents pushes the base of the wave underneath itself and the result is a wave that breaks over the top of itself in the same way as someone sweeping your feet out from underneath you and now the gramelken is fighting waves from different directions that are building on each other's forces and water current that is causing the waves to break over the boat forcing its Stern to pitch pole over its own bow and now the gramulkin must contend with the final forces that will seal her face both designers shifted their focus to a wider beam or midsection to increase the water line and make the boat faster as well as shallower draft or the depth of the boat below the water line to decrease the resistance under the water line these shifts in the focus of the design allowed for a faster boat but they also shifted the sensor of gravity upwards on the vessel stability on a boat is measured in the range of stability a boat with a range of stability of 150 degrees means even if the boat is fully inverted the action of the Waves will rock her enough that she'll write herself but the gramelken has a far lower range of stability approaching 90 degrees which means it's very easy to get knocked down and once she's rolled or pitch poled it's dumb luck if she writes herself now David and his team begin the fight for their life they have all the odds stacked against them and it's starting to show the crew are exhausted by the relay endless storm they're starting to show signs of hypothermia and they've all been through several near drownings as the boat has pitch pulled through the waves David decides he needs to send out a May Day call he and his 17 year old son Matthew hid below deck to make the call Nick Mike Dave and Jerry stay on Deck they start to bring the life raft into the cockpit with them the cockpit is the section of the yacht where the steering wheel is and where the sailors are sitting they don't launch the life raft they simply bring it out ready to launch if needed below deck David makes the MayDay call then he and Matthew brace themselves for yet another knockdown the storage in the boat is not built for a fully inverted boat and so debris is loose in the cabin a ton of food hits David in the head and fractures his skull Matthew drags his dad back into the cockpit another wave knocks the boat over and she doesn't write herself Matthew is lucky to find an air pockets underneath the turned cockpits after some time trying to keep himself afloat Nick appears in the same cockpit the crew are strapped to the boat by their harnesses this is helpful to keep them inside the boat but now it's also holding them from swimming out from underneath the overturned boat then the Mast gives way and shears from the boat almost immediately the center of gravity shifts the Masters no longer the weight holding them upside down and the boat writes herself Matthew helps to pull his crew into the cockpit of the boat he stops for a moment and notices his dad's body floating face down in the sea he knows he can't pull him aboard he wasn't clipped in when the boat capsized and now he's drifting away never to be seen again Mick and Jerry lie lifeless in the cockpit Mike and Dave immediately throw the life raft into the water and pull the core to inflate it they shout for Matthew to jump into the life raft Matthew turns to Nick and Dave he's torn between staying with the boats and the bodies of his two friends or evacuating to the life raft with Mike and Dave In the Heat of the Moment he jumps into the life raft with the two able Sailors over the hours that follow the life raft drifts away from the gramulkin Nick Ward and Jerry Wink's bodies are battered as the storm continues its Onslaught then Nick starts to come too he scans gamelken for signs of life but it's just him and Jerry Nick writes in his book left for dead that at the time he regained Consciousness Jerry was still alive I'll leave a link to the book below it's one of the best accounts I've read of the fastnet 79 Disaster by the time the gramelkin is found by a seeking helicopter Jerry is dead over the years to come the culture in offshore racing changed the ior rule for measurement evolved to a more holistic view of a vessel's Readiness for offshore racing the IMs or International measurement system eventually replaced the ior the IMs takes a broader look at the entry to a race including the emergency systems on board the team's completion of previous qualifying races and the range of stability of a vessel more than that Skippers became more ready to call off or delay a race if the weather was predicted to be too extreme in a number of subsequent races Skippers opted to abandon a race after the start and run for shelter at the nearest Port when severe weather approached crew became more conscious of safety with simple things like buying their own life jacket and harness instead of relying on the boat's kit you can't necessarily say that all these things are directly attributed to the fastness but it certainly played its part going to Sea will always be a dangerous Endeavor but if you compare the fastnet 79 disaster to the Sydney to Hobart 98 disaster which had a similar if not worse storm system you can see some differences in the Sydney to Hobart 98 race only 18 percent of the fleet were knocked down to 90 degrees compared to 48 in the Fast Net 79 disaster and as few as 3 percent were completely inverted compared to 18 in the fastnet of course you can't compare one storm or race directly with another in the end if you set sail it's up to you to understand the limitations of Your Vessel and be prepared for whatever conditions come your way I'll leave links to my sources in the description [Music]

Channel: Waterline Stories

Views: 537,417

Keywords: scuba diving, scuba diving accidents, decompression sickness, accidents, commercial diving, saturation diving, Sailing Disaster, fastnet 79, fastnet 1979

Id: GmT0SAMwDVI

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022