Sarah Young
Terrible news. A second sailor has died in the Clipper Round the World Race. On 1127 UTC on Friday, Sarah Young, 40, was swept over the side of the IchorCoal boat (CV21) in the Pacific Ocean by a series of waves, after reefing the mainsail. She was not tethered to the boat and was carried off in 35 – 40 knot winds. Her body was recovered but she never regained consciousness. The cause of death is yet to be determined but is suspected to be drowning or exposure. Her death took place at approximately 39 N 160 E, approaching the International Date Line, on the 12th day of the ninth race between Qingdao, China, and Seattle, USA, with over 3,242 miles left to reach its destination.
Last September, four days after the start of the Clipper Round the World Race, Andrew Ashman, 49, a paramedic, suffered a head injury and died while reefing the mainsail, also on the racing yacht IchorCoal (CV21). In the last twenty years of the Clipper Round the World Race, these have been the first fatalities. Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.
I read about a tether issue on day 27 of race 1 onboard Ichorcoal. I could not fully understand the issue as I have absolutely no sailing experience. Now I have learned of an overboard fatality of an untethered crew member on the same vessel. Please explain two points: What is the prevailing standard re: use of tether in open ocean sailing? Does the Clipper Race have any mandatory safety procedure re: use of tethers?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. I know that Clipper has safety and MOB procedures but I do not know the details. Tethering is part of the Clipper training yet, it can be necessary to clip and unclip at which time a sailor is vulnerable. The topic itself is complicated and there are no easy answers. Other sailors have been washed overboard untethered and rescued successfully in the Clipper Race. Sailors have also drowned (not in the Clipper Race) while wearing tethers after being washed overboard. No doubt, there will be an inquiry where we will learn more.
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I fear that “IchorCoal” will have difficulty finding replacement crewmates…
Crew on smaller boats frequently employ jacklines and tethers, certainly likely in the sea state during which this crewmember was lost. But as freeboard goes up and LOA expands, tethers seem to disappear. I see that IchorCoal (what a name!) is 21m and with pretty huge freeboard. From the race website:
“Sarah was tidying the cockpit after reefing the mainsail in 35 – 40 knots of wind, when she was knocked from her position by a wave. She fell back toward the guard wire and was swept under it by another wave at 1127 UTC (2227 local). She was not tethered onto the yacht at this time and was swept away in strong winds.”
So, not tethered.
I can definitely see how a false sense of safety on a largish boat could lead to being left in peril. This is what skippers are for, usually: “Tether when you leave the companionway. Discussion over.” But we seem frequently to see in racing boats a weird situation where nobody is really in charge of anything but their department, with the skipper not really having charge over anything but YouTube appearances. See the fiasco of the VOR with the navigator apparently solely in charge of plotting courses, leading to his firing and the lionization of the skipper as he supervised cleaning up the fragments of the boat he ran onto a reef.
According to the Clipper Race crew manual (a strange mixture of travel brochure and serious instruction) the policy is crystal clear: lifejacket to be worn when above decks, that jacket to be clipped onto the boat. There’s even a prominent sidebar from Sir Robin encouraging clipping on at all times, despite supposed inconveniences.
So either Ms. Young was the victim of very unfortunate timing (and lack of situational awareness; “look before unclipping”) or race policy was being ignored. Human nature being what it is, the latter is vastly more likely than the former. Will the skipper end up owning this, as he should if probability proves the rule? The outcome is cloudy, by precedent Whatever authority a skipper (and by extension all skippers) have devolves from willingness to take responsibility for everything that happens when off the dock; the recent VOR abdication of hierarchy breaks that assumption and all the guarantees that are supposed to come with it.
http://clipperroundtheworld.com/crew-manual