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YACHTING

Danish crew’s boat crash leads to call for overhaul

After the Danish team in the Volvo Ocean Race had to leave their boat stranded on a reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean, a panel has recommended changing the industry standards of charting.

Published: 11 March 2015 11:18 CET
Danish crew's boat crash leads to call for overhaul
A Volvo Ocean Race Hand Out image shows Danish Team Vestas Wind aground on the reef in Cargados Carajos Shoals off the coast of Mauritius on November 30th. Photo: Amory Ross/Team Alvimedica/Scanpix
An independent report into the crash of Volvo Ocean Race boat, Vestas Wind, on an Indian Ocean reef has recommended an overhaul of navigational charting in offshore racing to prevent a similar incident in the future.
 
The Danish boat's crew miraculously avoided serious injury when they collided with the reef at St Brandon on November 29 last year at around 40kph and span 180 degrees before coming to a halt, grounded.
 
 
The vessel was badly damaged and the crew were forced to abandon it in the pitch darkness and wade to the safety of a nearby large rock in shark-infested waters before being rescued at first light by coastguards.
 
The Team Vestas Wind boat has since been retrieved and is being rebuilt for a return to the nine-month marathon race in June, but organizers commissioned a report in December into how the accident occurred and guidelines to avoid a repetition.
 
A retired Australian Navy rear admiral, Chris Oxenbould, headed the report's panel of three, which revealed its findings on Tuesday in a global media call.
 
It found that a failure by the crew to spot the reef on onboard electronic navigational guides was to blame and has recommended that industry standards of charting, both electronic and paper, be improved.
 
In particular, the panel says that a passenger aircraft-style list of check-points should first be ticked off before ocean racing boats take to the open sea.
 
This currently does not happen in many leading events, including the Volvo Ocean Race, which is widely considered the sport's top offshore challenge.
 
Both the Volvo Ocean Race and the Vestas Wind's Australian skipper, Chris Nicholson, have welcomed the report.
 
The fleet sets out from Auckland for the fifth leg of nine on Sunday, March 15. It is the longest and most challenging stage of the nine-month race, which takes the fleet through the Southern Ocean to the next destination of Itajaí in Brazil.
 
The 38,739-nautical mile race will conclude on June 27, in Gothenburg, Sweden, after visiting 11 ports in total and every continent.

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RACE

Gabart, the record breaking French sailor in a hurry

A sailing prodigy, Frenchman Francois Gabart on Sunday crushed the world record for the fastest non-stop solo navigation of the world on his first attempt.

Published: 17 December 2017 11:43 CET
Gabart, the record breaking French sailor in a hurry
Sailing prodigy Francois Gabart celebrating in Brest. Photo: Damien Meyer/AFP

Driven by a desire to discover the world at full speed, the sailor completed his tour in 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds.

“The job of a sailor is nothing more than managing problems and dealing with difficulties,” said Gabart, an engineer by trade.

The winner of the 2013 Vendee Globe and 2014 Route de Rhum yacht races, the 34-year-old father-of-two has been sailing for 20 years.

Trailblazer

“He likes to be a pioneer, he is not an upstart but someone in a hurry to discover things, to demonstrate things to himself and others,” said Christian Le Pape, who has known Gabart for 10 years.

“I wouldn't classify him as a genius in terms of ease at the helm but he has an ability to process information that is out of the ordinary like Michel Desjoyeaux or Armel Le Cleach.”

Desjoyeaux, a double winner of the Vendee Globe who mentored the engineer, said Gabart was given the the name “Excel spreadsheet” by his team.

“At the arrival of the Vendee Globe, we found 74 markings on the boat, but the race had taken 78 days,” said Desjoyeaux.

“In fact, he had noted the number of times he had brushed his teeth. He's not crazy but very rational.”

Weather and poetry

Gabart comfortably recognises his square side.

“I'm pretty reasonable and rational,” said Gabart, the son of a dentist and brother to two sisters.

“I've been like that since I was 10-years-old!

“My parents tell me that when I was a kid, I was very good at certain things.”

A sailor who doesn't like to swim, Gabart first dreamed of being a metrologist as a child.

“At 10 I was reading books about whether and knew things that no one understood at that age,” he said.

“I'm passionate about the weather.

“We can be wrong but we can almost see in to the future, I find it extraordinary to be able to know what will happen.

“There is a poetic side too, to watch a cloud is beautiful.”

By Sabine Colpart