Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag has put out a timeline of events in the recent loss of John Fisher overboard while sailing in high winds and seas in the Southern Ocean in the Volvo Ocean Race.
- They were sailing in Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Auckland, New Zealand to Itajai, Brazil, approximately 1,400 nautical miles west of Cape Horn. The wind was blowing 35-45 knots with 4 to 5 meter seas. Intermittent showers reduced visibility.
- At 15 minutes before sunrise, Fisher unclipped his tether to go forward to “tidy up” a jib sheet. The Team statement says that untethering was “standard procedure when moving between positions.”
- As Fisher moved forward SHK/Scallywag surfed down a large wave and accidentally crash gybed. Fisher was hit by the mainsheet tackle and was knocked overboard. The crew on board believe Fisher was unconscious from the blow before he hit the water. He was wearing a survival suit with a wetsuit hood and gloves and a lifejacket.
- The JON buoy and the horseshoe buoy were thrown off the back of the boat to mark the position
- It took approximately 40 minutes to get the boat under control and to motor sail back to the position where Fisher went overboard. They searched for several hours but found no sign of Fisher or either buoy. In deteriorating weather, they reluctantly abandoned the search.
There seem to several takeaways from the tragedy. The first and the most obvious is that a gybe in high winds and seas can be deadly. In 2016, Andrew Ashman, sailing in the Clipper Round the World Race, died after being struck by a mainsheet when the IchorCoal gybed unexpectedly. Ashman was tethered in the cockpit but died of injuries to his neck and head.
The second takeaway, also obvious, is that moving forward without being clipped-in is very dangerous. There does not appear to have been a jackstay or other means for Fisher to move from the cockpit and stay tethered. As was the case with Andrew Ashman, John Fisher might still have been seriously injured or killed by being hit by the mainsheet tackle, but if tethered he might have stayed aboard, where he possibly could have received first aid.
In the timeline account, there is no mention of any sort of Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). Given the circumstances and the geography, a GPS PLB may not have been of any practical use. An AIS PLB, however, might have allowed the boat to home-in on the missing sailor using their AIS receiver.
For more details, click here for the Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag timeline.
Working untethered is a bit of surprise, truly.
I suppose that evaluating events such as the VOR against standard metrics of common sense is to miss the point.
Even so, as always the biggest misery only really begins immediately after the dying is finished. Failed hazard/risk calculations affect survivors who may not be such enthusiastic volunteers to court disaster. Presumably there are remaining family members who would have strongly preferred to hear instead a sea story about how a brush with death was avoided by simple precautions.
I find it hard to believe that it was accepted practice to be on deck without a safety line in the Southern Ocean, or anywhere else in a gale and 4 metre plus seas. He died fulfilling his dream but that is no help to the rest of the crew or his friends and family who have my deepest sympathy.
No doubt AIS / PLB s will be standard equipment in those circumstances in future , they are available and it’s tragic one was not used.
I have been involved in five MOB situtions : each time astonished at how hard it is to see that little head among the waves , so I made the crew have a large heavy duty orange plastic bag in their pocket or bum-bag , to hold in the wind and inflate for greater visability ;then get into it later for a kind of wet-suit to delay hypothermia.[Turn the tide on plastic].
A high quality purpose built, automatic self inflating buoy of this sort , is the logical evoloution . tethered to the casualty.
An inflatable ‘sleeping-bag’ kind of sausage is another idea , which you might be glad to have in that situation. With goggles and snorkel.
Maybe off-shore racing officials need to introduce a mandatory “slither alley,” or tunnel, (with jackline) to prevent the mainsheet tackle fatalities.
When Ashman died on the Clipper Race the boom was rigged with a preventer that failed during the gybe, allowing the boom to swing out of control. Ashman was standing so-called “danger zone” which proved to be a fatal mistake.
There is no reference to gear failure on Skallywag, so a preventer may not have been rigged. There have been VOR videos of gybes on other boats where it did not appear that a preventer had been rigged. Preventers can cause their own problems, turning a nasty gybe into a dangerous broach.