
pic by Ian Mainsbridge/NOKIA/PPL
By Richard Crockett
It’s always tough sharing yacht race tragedies, but one can, and does learn a lot from them, especially when the teaser hidden above the headline said “six die…55 rescued…6 yachts abandoned…88 more retire”.
As the 115 yachts left Sydney under bright skies on Boxing Day, no one foresaw the 80 knot winds and 11 metre seas that were to overwhelm half the fleet within 24 hours. The weathermen had warned 24 hours earlier of winds up to 50 knots and a southerly change, but that was well within the ability of the fleet.
Here is one of the several explicit descriptions describing what happened: “At 02h00, the 41ft ‘Stand Aside’ was rolled over and dismasted in the seas and her cabin top was split open and water poured below, stalling her engine. A helicopter crew went to her assistance to find one crewman had lost several fingers, another suffering head injuries and a third – Michelle Blewitt – tangled up in the yacht’s rigging. She had to cut herself free and like the others, jump into a liferaft before they could be winched to safety. “I never want to see the sea again” she said later”.
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE: Pages from 1999 02 – SAILING Magazine – OCR

pic by Ian Mainsbridge/News Ltd/PPL