Two Sailors Lose Their Lives in Chicago to Mackinac Island Race

[category4jay]

rest in peace guys

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by SabreKai

As for carrying knives, I don't think I've ever seen a sailor with one on his harness or PFD. I've seen whistles, strobes and horns but never a knife.

Just rotten luck. I think they did everything right and Murphy came for a visit.

I carry my knife with its belt-clip clipped to my combo PFD/harness. The knife also has a bungee lanyard attached to the harness. And my tether has a quick-release snap shackle at the harness.

But I heard that the two sailors died from head injuries -- if so, the tether may not have been an issue.

This was an extreme event. According to instruments on a neighboring boat, the windspeed was in excess of 105 kts for a fifteen-minute period. I've attached a screenshot from the nearby boat (the NA-40 Fast Tango). You will see that the windspeed stripchart starts in the middle of 25 kt winds (50+ kt gusts) at the top of the screen, and then jumps to sustained 105+ kts for about fifteen minutes. It then falls back to 25 kts, and down to 5 kts behind the front, then back to 25 kts.

[pteron]

Originally Posted by SabreKai

Photos of the inverted hull show it to be a fixed keel with bulb. As for carrying knives, I don't think I've ever seen a sailor with one on his harness or PFD. I've seen whistles, strobes and horns but never a knife.

Just rotten luck. I think they did everything right and Murphy came for a visit.

Dreadful news.

Re knives, I've never stepped on a boat without one.

A hundred years ago, you'd probably have been laughed off the boat if you didn't have a knife, but times have changed.

[SabreKai]

Nowadays you are likely to be hauled off the boat and arrested if you do have one. Especially a sheath knife.

Sabre

[Khagan1227]

Both were attached to the boat using lifelines.

The article I read said they both died from blunt force trauma to the head.

They also knew the storm was headed their way and stripped the masts, but the wind got up under one of the wings and flipped them.

2 die when sailboat capsizes during Mackinac race: 'A hell of a night' - southbendtribune.com

That article has a picture of the boat with the wings in.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Khagan1227

That article has a picture of the boat with the wings in.

Note in the photo that the wings point up a bit so even if the boat is on an even keel the wind can get underneith them.

And 65 knots, or up to 105 knots as says one post, the wind would put a lot of tipping force on the under sides of those wings.

[Jim Cate]

I guess that one comment on the suitability of the design is that none of the many other boats in the storm flipped.

I sorta remember that there was a similar sort of boat in the SF Bay area years ago. Called Eclipse, maybe?? Anyhow as I recall, she was rolled or flipped in a race from the Gate south, (maybe the Windjammers to Santa Cruz?) and there was a lot of controversy generated.

They are fast, fun to sail and ok in most conditions, but the failure mode is a bad one.

Cheers,

Jim

[Sabbatical II]

There's a very similar boat on Lake Macquarie with a red hull. I'd be surprised Jim if you hadn't seen it. It's a very fast boat in the inshore races. BTW Insatiable II looked all OK 2 day ago when I walked passed it on the dock.

Greg

[Billy Higgins]

This boat was designed six years after the Fastnet disaster of 1979, so surely the designer did not intend for this sport boat to race 300 mile Category 1 or 2 races. While there's plenty of culpability to spread around for this accident, the Race Committee is #1 in my opinion. The boat should never, ever have been qualified to race over that distance. Apparently the Chicago - Mac race course is not considered Category 1 in ORC terms?

Equally, IMHO the skipper and/or owner are guilty of gross negligence, not to mention insufferable hubris. In fact, everyone on the boat during that race was playing with death, and took their chances.

I don't intend for this post to sound brutal, but every sailor should know that the sea has no mercy.

[Nateman]

She's righted...

[FecklessDolphin]

Another way to think about the earlier post by SabreKai is that this boat would be very stable in an inverted position. It would be unlikely for it to flip back to an upright position without a really good push.

[speciald@ocens.]

Here is a video filmed with a helmet cam during the storm. These guys and the boat survived. You can hear the captain screaming "Is everyone on the boat?". http://youtu.be/R4Bc2oFPMH4

[bstreep]

Here's a great article - has a photo of the instruments showing sustained 100kts:

Sail-World.com : Chicago-Mackinac Race

[meburma]

Originally Posted by speciald@ocens.

Here is a video filmed with a helmet cam during the storm. These guys and the boat survived. You can hear the captain screaming "Is everyone on the boat?". http://youtu.be/R4Bc2oFPMH4

Man that must have been insane. Did you read the description below the video?

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by bstreep

Here's a great article - has a photo of the instruments showing sustained 100kts:

Sail-World.com : Chicago-Mackinac Race

That's the same screenshot I posted earlier, from my NavMonPc program. The more I study this screenshot, the less certain I am about the 100+kt windspeed. Notice how the high-intensity portion of the plot shows the speed constantly jumping back and forth between zero and offscale (100+). This indicates transducer overload, electrical interference from lightning (the lightning was nearly constant), or some similar anomaly.

The wind could have easily been 100+kts, and other nearby boats did report 90+ numbers, but the screenshot itself seems unreliable during the worst of it. In any case, it was definitely a massive, terrible, storm, and of course a great tragedy.