Sailing Magazine
As a result of a report in the Sunday Tribune talking glibly about “killer waves”, both David Cox and Chris Bonnet separately expressed their views in letters to The Editor.Some content may be a repetition of what has already been published in the past few days, but it does reinforce the severity of the storm, the competence of the competitors and the efforts taken by the organising Club, the Point Yacht Club, to ensure that ALL the facts were put on the table and published for all to learn from.
Letter from David Cox – 6 May, 1984
I take the strongest possible exception to your article headed “Why wasn’t it called off?” with reference to the 1984 Vasco da Gama Race. I write both as a competitor (Skipper “Magic Carpet”) and as Chairman of the Natal Region of CASA under whose safety rules the event is sailed.
The comment “weather experts say all the signs pointed to extremely dangerous conditions in race area” staggers me. We consulted with the experts, we listened to the Marine Weather Broadcasts, we studied synoptic charts and no one forecast severe conditions. Who are the experts who “knew” and didn’t tell us? The 29 Skippers and the Point Yacht Club’s Race Committee were all deeply conscious of their responsibilities and the decision to start the race was not taken lightly. Had a gale of over 60 knots been forecast the race would have been postponed. Not one of the 29 Skippers would have sailed in the face of such a warning.
The sequence of events was as follows:
1. The weather pattern was carefully monitored during the period leading up to the race. Competitors were given synoptic charts on Tuesday 24th, and again before they sailed.
2. As a competitor I personally phoned the Met Office at Louis Botha Airport at 7.00 am on the morning of the 26th April, and asked to speak to the Senior Forecaster on duty. He explained the weather situation as he saw it and gave me no indication of anything other than light to moderate South Westerly winds. He was aware of why I requested the forecast – I had personally expected stronger winds, I was delighted with this forecast.
3. The Race Officer telephoned the same Met Office at 8.30 am and received a similar forecast. The decision to start the race was then taken, and in the light of all available information it was the correct one.
During Thursday after the race started at 10.00 am, the yachts received weather information from the Shipping Radio Station “Durban Radio”. These reports were at:
11.03 weather Forecast – no gale warning
maximum windspeed – SW 25/30 knots.
15.03 Weather Report – actual report on conditions at Port St Johns, Port Shepstone, Durban and Richards Bay. No areas of high wind were reported.
19.03 Weather Forecast – the first gale warning for SW winds of 30/35 knots.
At 2000 hours, less than 1 hour after the forecast, the fleet experienced a gale of over 60 knots, which maintained this strength for some 6 hours before moderating gradually. Nothing in the official forecasts prepared us for a storm of such severity. Had we expected such a storm, most skippers would have headed into the coast to move out of the Mozambique Current, the breeding ground of the “rogue” or “freak” waves, and the damage done would have been far less.
Your article reports that a weather expert and oceanographer state that the conditions experienced were predictable. Why then were they not predicted by the official Weather Forecasting Service ? That they were not predicted is beyond doubt as transcripts of all the official weather information and synoptic charts are available. One competitor obtained information before and after the event from Ocean Routes, an independent American source supplying world weather information to shipping. Their forecasts and reports are similar to the local ones and give no indication of a severe storm.
I believe your article is an affront to the integrity of the Organisers and competitors in the 1984 Vasco da Gama Race and I sincerely hope your newspaper will take steps to rectify the erroneous impression given to the general public by your irresponsible article.
Letter from Chris Bonnet – 10 May, 1984
I would like to comment on your headline “why wasn’t it called off?” in last week’s Sunday Tribune, referring to the Vasco da Gama Race.
I was in the unique position of being able to monitor the weather first hand having recently installed a weather facsimile machine in my lecture rooms. This machine gives a print-out of the synopsis for the Southern Oceans, the South African coast and gives Sea Temperature charts. Copies of these were given to all yachtsmen participating in the Vasco da Gama race.
Your reporter’s statement that “Killer seas were on the way” were totally erroneous for the following reasons:
a. The synopsis at 1400 local time on Wednesday, 25th April, 1984, prior to the race was received in Durban at 1700 local time and showed two frontal systems west of the Cape. The opinion of the Weather Officer at Louis Botha Airport (Mr Tilbury) on Wednesday evening was that the second frontal system was holding back the first frontal system which could delay the approach of these systems on the east coast. The strong Indian Ocean high was also blocking the approach of these systems.
b. The opinion of Dr E Schumann (who I know personally) was one of conjecture i.e. IF the frontal system was large enough and IF it reached the east coast then there was the POSSIBILITY of large waves forming – Dr. Schumann at no time consulted any weather maps prior to the race to substantiate this.
c. The opinion of Mr Mike de Villiers of the Durban Weather Bureau was in ‘hindsight’ – he categorically denies stating that he knew that the weather system approaching the Cape would create a “killer wave situation on our coastline.
d. Weather forecasting is not an exact science – ask any meteorologist; if it was, we would have been advised by them of the situation developing and the race would have obviously been delayed.
e. On the morning of the race a coastal low of only 1004mb was shown on the synoptic chart ahead of the frontal system at East London. This was no cause for alarm. No gale warning was given.
f. The only advice of a gale warning was at 1903 on Thursday evening when all the yachts were well on their way.
g. The reason for the gale is apparent on the synoptic charts. On the afternoon of Thursday, the two frontal systems merged north of East London creating gale force winds; remember there are no weather stations between East London and Durban, a distance of 25O miles. Even in England where there are hundreds of reporting stations, a situation such as the Fastnet disaster in 1979 was only reported hours
before the gale struck and decimated the fleet.
h. The weather experienced by yachtsmen and, the wind velocities recorded were far in excess of those forecast by the Met stations down the coast. The forecast speeds of 35 knots were perfectly acceptable wind conditions and all yachts could cope with that situation without any difficulty. However, the winds recorded were in excess of 70 knots for at least 4 to 5 hours, and then dropped to 60 knots, which is, on the Beaufort scale, Force, 12 plus. When I reported these wind speeds to the Durban Weather Office they were horrified, and stated that they could not even imagine what wind speeds like that could be like. There is no way that these conditions could have been forecast.
I. At least once a week a frontal system approaches the Western Cape with the potential to create large waves on the Eastern Seaboard – perhaps only one in 30 develops into a major storm.
j. I personally have sailed over 50 000 miles in the past four years off this coast whilst sail-training. I have encountered at least 20 Force 10 and 6 Force 12 gales in that period. None had the destructive power encountered in the early hours of Friday, 27 April, 1984.
Your reporter’s attitude is destructive to say the least – no mention is made of the numerous yachts that were dismasted or damaged that returned to Durban without any assistance. A special mention of Yacht ‘Transformer’ which lost both its mast and rudder and refused a tow from NSRI vessel ‘Captain Bell’, so that vessel could continue its search. ‘Transformer’ returned without any help to its dock and was manned by University students from the University Yacht Club.
What is required by your reporter is objective reporting of facts – not conjecture and self opinion of someone ignorant of the ways of the sea. I would be happy to offer your Mr Ferreira a free sailing course with my Academy, where he can learn first hand how to cope with the sea, and perhaps in future he would be better qualified to have an opinion.
