MOB Man Overboard! Volvo Team Sun Hung Kai Scallywag

[boatman61]

Why I detest sailing downwind with main up.. jib only for me, especially solo or shorthanded as I do..
For me once past broad reach the main starts becoming a liability.. me Chicken Little..
But.. if your gonna race your gonna push the limits come hell or high water..
Condolences to the family..

[Catapault]

https://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/ne...Scallywag.html

The telling part ?

• John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether

• As the mainsail swung across the boat in the gybe, the mainsheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat. The crew on board believe John was unconscious from the blow before he hit the water

/ponder.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Official Update text (Verbatim):
Update from Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag

March 28, 2018
14:27 UTC
The following story has been issued on behalf of Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag

On Monday 26 March, Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag lost John Fisher overboard in the Southern Ocean, approximately 1,400 nautical miles west of Cape Horn.

Despite conducting an exhaustive search in gale force conditions, he has not been recovered.

“This is the worst situation you can imagine happening to your team,” said SHK/Scallywag Team Manager Tim Newton, who has spoken with skipper David Witt and navigator Libby Greenhalgh about what happened on Monday.

“We are absolutely heart-broken for John’s family and friends. I know for David, he has lost his best friend. It’s devastating.”

Newton says he asked the crew to put together a timeline of events to ensure accurate reporting on the incident and it follows here:

On Monday, 26 March, SHK/Scallywag was racing in Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Auckland, New Zealand to Itajai, Brazil, approximately 1,400 nautical miles west of Cape Horn
Weather conditions were 35-45 knots with 4 to 5 metre seas with showers reducing visibility. It was 15 minutes before sunrise
The team was sailing with a single reef in the mainsail and the J2 jib. The Fractional 0 (FR0) sail was hoisted but furled
At roughly 1300 UTC SHK/Scallywag surfed down a large wave leading to an accidental crash gybe
John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether
As the mainsail swung across the boat in the gybe, the mainsheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat. The crew on board believe John 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 some time to get the boat under control and motor sail back to a position near where the man overboard occurred
At 1342 (UTC), the team informed Race Control, by email, that there was a man overboard and they were returning to the MOB position to start a search pattern
With input from the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre and Race Control in Alicante, a search and rescue operation was carried out for several hours but there was no sign of John, the horseshoe buoy, or the JON buoy
With weather conditions deteriorating, a difficult decision was taken to abandon the search and preserve the safety of the remaining crew
Newton says the team is distraught but has a clear focus on getting the crew and boat back to shore.

“This situation isn’t over yet for our team,” Newton said. “The conditions are extremely challenging, with strong winds and a forecast for a building sea state over the next couple of days. Our sole focus, with the assistance of Race Control in Alicante is to get the team into port safely.

“Once we have achieved that, we have time to de-brief more fully and ensure that any lessons that can be learned from what happened to John are incorporated by the rest of the fleet going forward.

“That would be a tremendous legacy for John, who spent so much of his time passing the learnings from his lifetime of experience at sea onto the younger sailors on our team.”

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by ZULU40

maybe racing of this nature has outlived its usefulness

No, not even close. Life is full of risks, and even mundane living has its risks. Thousands die each year just slipping on bath tubs, or falling down stairs. In the U.S. alone we lose over 30,000 each year to car accidents. If you avoid riding in cars due to this, then you can be run over by a car or killed by a train. If we eliminate racing then we might as well outlaw all sports and activities, because someone somewhere has been hurt or killed.

Racing improves the breed in all ways. The equipment gets better. People get better. Knowledge improves. These things improve the experience of sailing and in the long run they save lives.

[frozenhawaiian]

Originally Posted by Catapault

https://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/ne...Scallywag.html

The telling part ?

• John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether

• As the mainsail swung across the boat in the gybe, the mainsheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat. The crew on board believe John was unconscious from the blow before he hit the water

/ponder.

ok, lets be real here, at a certain point you will be unclipped, even if it's to move your tether from one anchor point to another.

[Catapault]

Originally Posted by frozenhawaiian

ok, lets be real here, at a certain point you will be unclipped, even if it's to move your tether from one anchor point to another.

Unless you use two, which is the way I was taught. It is certainly more cumbersome though, and may not be practical on a racing boat such as that. Not been on one, so no idea. Of course you are unclipped when going inside.

I just thought that part stood out as hmm, based on the pretty nasty conditions described. We can't armchair quaterback it from here. Round the world Racing is inherently more dangerous than walking down the street !.

No saint here on our own boat when it comes to tethers.. Though making me think about it some more.

Mark.

[Flagman101]

Originally Posted by frozenhawaiian

ok, lets be real here, at a certain point you will be unclipped, even if it's to move your tether from one anchor point to another.

If you have to unclip it's bad design.
The system should be design that if you need to change anchor point you stay attached to the previous until you are clipped to the new anchor point. Then you unclip and move on.
They should have Y tethers.
Even going down below or coming up in the cockpit.
You should have a dedicated tether permanently clipped to a pad eye. This tether is long enough to let you get inside or out.
If your going inside you clip pn this. Go down and unclip.
If you're going outside you clip on it until you can use yours own tether to clip on a safety point.

Safety is a question of culture.

[leboyd]

What's missing in the posts above is the rest of the statement:
John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether as was standard procedure when moving between positions.
https://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/ne...Scallywag.html

[ZULU40]

Originally Posted by leboyd

What's missing in the posts above is the rest of the statement:
John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether as was standard procedure when moving between positions.
https://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/ne...Scallywag.html

then clearly procedure is flat out WRONG
be clipped into the next before releasing the first

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by ZULU40

then clearly procedure is flat out WRONG
be clipped into the next before releasing the first

A definite handicap for fast movement..

[ZULU40]

Originally Posted by boatman61

A definite handicap for fast movement..

not if you correctly anticipate your next movement is off the boat
what comes first

[estarzinger]

what primarily puzzles me is why they (apparently) took so long to get back to the MOB. If they had been flying a chute I would have clearly understood; BUT they were (apparently) flying (small) jib and (reefed) main and should have been able to stop/return pretty much instantly using any one of several standard MOB maneuvers they should all have know like the back of their hand.

Yes, the conditions were not nice, but I remember when a french single hander sailed back up wind quite a long way to rescue a compatriot in rather worse conditions. These are open ocean rtw volvo racers, they can (should be able to) handle/maneuver in that sort of weather.

I am also a little puzzled why they gave up the search so quickly if the MOB was in fact inn a survival suit (with wetsuit hood and gloves). Again, they 'should have' had a pretty accurate mob gps position (these boats are required to have well located mob gps buttons) to use as a known search pattern point. And the survival suit should have provided floatation even if the pfd was not activated.

The tether thing . . . . I understand completely . . . . we can discuss 'safety culture' . . . . but this is a race boat and (unfortunately) they don't much operate on 'safety culture' (as defined in commercial environments). What he was doing is how they operate. We can debate about changing that racing culture, but what he was in fact doing is no surprise to anyone who has been in that environment.

[Flagman101]

If the system is poorly designed it could be problematic and invite the user to unclip.

This should raise a red flag to the Crew, team, skipper, organizers etc.
They all should be harmonized.

It's a question of culture. If it's alright to unclip for the skipper it will be for the rest of the crew.

Look at these videos.
On this one at 26-27 secondes you can see a crew member onboard Team Brunel not wearing is PFD or Harnais. They are sailing in the same area as was Scallywag. These images were the day before the accident.
https://youtu.be/u7PqI67mSJc

https://youtu.be/GiBKc_-P72I
On this video, after every boat was informed of the accident, everybody is wearing the PFD and are clipped in.
The culture changed?

A butcher told me once. When your not scared of your blade, thats when you cut yourself.

[Flagman101]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

what primarily puzzles me is why they (apparently) took so long to get back to the MOB. If they had been flying a chute I would have clearly understood; BUT they were (apparently) flying (small) jib and (reefed) main and should have been able to stop/return pretty much instantly using any one of several standard MOB maneuvers they should all have know like the back of their hand.

Yes, the conditions were not nice, but I remember when a french single hander sailed back up wind quite a long way to rescue a compatriot in rather worse conditions. These are open ocean rtw volvo racers, they can (should be able to) handle/maneuver in that sort of weather.

These boats are very very complicated to maneuver.
On this video Ian Walker explains why.
https://youtu.be/GiBKc_-P72I

I am also a little puzzled why they gave up the search so quickly if the MOB was in fact inn a survival suit (with wetsuit hood and gloves). Again, they 'should have' had a pretty accurate mob gps position (these boats are required to have well located mob gps buttons) to use as a known search pattern point. And the survival suit should have provided floatation even if the pfd was not activated.

They are not wearing survival suits as those when abandoning ship. They are not drysuits. You can look up the Hello Hanson website
I am very curious as to why the Personal locator did not fonction. Was it worn? Lost on impact? Disfonctional?


The tether thing . . . . I understand completely . . . . we can discuss 'safety culture' . . . . but this is a race boat and (unfortunately) they don't much operate on 'safety culture' (as defined in commercial environments). What he was doing is how they operate. We can debate about changing that racing culture, but what he was in fact doing is no surprise to anyone who has been in that environment.

He was doing exactly has it was accepted in the culture of this boat.
If you follow car racing, when they introduced the Hans device. Half the drivers were saying it would prevent them from having good head mouvements and seeing other cars.
A few years later all the drivers are wearing the Hans Device.
The advantage ( not dying ) seem to outweigh the disadvantages

Maybe loosing 15 secondes is not worth dying
We will see in the futur

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

...the MOB was in fact inn a survival suit (with wetsuit hood and gloves). Again, they 'should have' had a pretty accurate mob gps position (these boats are required to have well located mob gps buttons) to use as a known search pattern point. And the survival suit should have provided floatation even if the pfd was not activated....

This is me 4 hours into a dry suit testing the ice. Granted, the weather is nice and I'm mostly just bored. Notice how I am floating.

• This is the normal amount of flotation if I do not take extra measure to expel air, which for deck wear you do not. To dive you get most of the air out, but you still float.
• Without a PFD it can be stable feet-up or on your face. Conscious, not a big problem. Unconscious it would be. With a PDF the problem goes away.

A dry suit with some foam up high might be the thing. You need just enough to right the wearer, not full flotation. The inflation puzzel also goes away. Then all you need is a harness.